


The Merit of Destruction

by FannibalToast



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence (Criminal Minds), CW for Chapter 7: non-graphic reference to canon gaslighting about a sexual assault, Canon-Typical Violence (Hannibal), Crossover, F/F, Gen, M/M, Past Drug Use, Post-Fall (Hannibal), Post-Prison (Spencer Reid), Profiling vs. Empathy, Psychological Drama, Self-Doubt, dark!Spencer, dark!Will
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2019-10-05 17:46:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 40,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17329598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FannibalToast/pseuds/FannibalToast
Summary: There's a darkness coiling in Spencer Reid. Kindled by Cat Adams and ignited by his wrongful imprisonment, he surrenders to his anger, leaving the BAU and cutting ties with his team.He soon finds himself summoned to an undisclosed location, where Margot Verger and Alana Bloom are waiting. A body has been found in Geneva, elaborately posed, organs missing. They believe Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham have resurfaced, intending to keep a deadly promise made to Alana years ago.They want Spencer to do more than profile Hannibal and Will: he's meant to catch them. As his fascination with Hannibal and Will grows, he finds the darkness inside him spreading in ways he never could have anticipated. And he doesn't want it to stop.





	1. An Undisclosed Location

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the thing: I love Hannibal deeply. The show's characters, the world it creates, the way it looks and feels, all continue to captivate my imagination. It's a world I never want to leave.
> 
> And here's another thing: I'm enchanted by Spencer Reid. I find Criminal Minds to be much more plot-driven than character-driven, and I often wonder how much more we could learn about different characters if they spent some time in Hannibal's world. 
> 
> Basically, I'm dying to find out what happens when Spencer enters Hannibal's and Will's orbit, and these are the first steps to making that happen!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Banner by the wonderful @TreacleA! I'm completely in love with it. Thank you so much, my friend!

It was, by far, the most impressive safehouse Spencer Reid had ever seen. The driveway, well over a mile long, was kept dark, but at its base sprawled a massive Italian-style villa, curving into the landscape with intentional design. Dusk kept the full scale of the house secret, but the soft golden light of the front archway showed him enough: a deep mahogany door standing beside a square two-story tower, topped with a low-pitched roof. Behind the tower stretched the rest of the house. The tall, curved windows were lit on the first floor near the entryway, though Spencer hadn’t seen any lights from deeper within the home. It was too dark to tell now, but he was sure the daylight would reveal stunning brown and white stonework along the face of the house.

Near the front door and in three of the windows, in addition to the others he’d spotted in the trees, glowed the glass red eyes of security cameras.

Cost was of no consequence to the inhabitants. Even a much younger, more inexperienced profiler would have gathered that in a heartbeat.

Spencer tilted his head to better peer out the window of the black SUV. Two armed guards flanked either side of the front door. As the car rolled to a stop, the agent in the front passenger seat spoke into her earpiece, announcing their arrival. She looked over her shoulder, catching his eye.

“We’ve arrived, Dr. Reid. We’ll escort you inside.”

He nodded, unsure if she saw his movements in the dark. The agents up front were tense. The driver’s head made repetitive turns from left to right as he scanned the space ahead of them for abnormal movement. His shoulders were stiff, his jaws clicking together forcefully over a piece of gum. The agent in the passenger seat sat straight and rigid, repeatedly checking the cell phone in her hand. The guards at the door were speaking into their own earpieces, no doubt communicating with the other agents located around the perimeter.

The driver stepped out and opened Spencer’s door, gesturing him out of the car. His partner walked ahead of them, speaking in a hushed voice to her counterparts. She tossed a glance over her shoulder once more, holding out her hand to indicate where the profiler should stand. When he was in place, she gave the door three swift knocks and rang the doorbell once. An all-clear.

He stood in silence as the sound carried through the body of the house, its echo strong yet delicate. There was nothing for him to see in the darkness, so he listened. There was an odd silence, a deliberate absence of weapons being readied. Indicating that clips were already loaded, firearms already prepared to fire. There was a distinct lack of canine presence, as well. Guard dogs were a common theme among the wealthy elite seeking to protect themselves. Spencer couldn’t hear any of the telltale barking or growling.

Then there was the chatter. The guards identified their positions, counting off from around the property, their voices low and tinny through the radios. All of them included the same reassurance in their check-in: no signs of life.

They were waiting for an invasion. Spencer could read it in their movements, in their clipped responses. This safehouse, as elaborate as it was, was clearly not fortress enough for whatever they were preparing for.

The door swung open, then, the warm light from the archway mingling with light from inside the house. A woman stepped out to greet them. Her face, immaculately symmetrical, was framed with a wave of dark golden curls. She scanned him quickly, taking a short breath before speaking.

“Dr. Reid. Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

Her voice was tight and flat, the expected politeness of her standing at odds with the glint of fear that added a glassiness to her eyes.

“I’m Margot Verger. Please, come in.”

He followed her into the foyer, just as elaborate and beautiful as could be expected from the home of the heir to the Verger fortune. Spencer allowed himself a brief glance around as the agents from the car trailed him, ensuring that he kept pace with their employer. They followed her down a short hall into a more formal sitting room, where a crackling fire waited for them in a sprawling stone hearth. Windows stretched the length of the wall across from the door and parallel to it, offering what must have been a breathtaking view of the landscape during the day. Now, pitched into night, Spencer saw more glowing red eyes of security cameras spread out over the property, and the soft pulsation of fireflies as they dipped into what was left of the season’s tall flowers and shrubbery.

Margot took a seat across from the fire, gesturing for Spencer to join her before reaching for a decanter resting on a small marble-topped end table to her left.

“I’d offer you some bourbon, but I understand you don’t drink.”

Spencer blinked in surprise. “You read up on me.”

Pouring herself a glass, she crossed her legs and leaned back into her chair, the firelight dancing across her cheekbones, beneath her eyes. She hadn’t slept.

“I had to make sure you were the right person for the job. That involved considerable digging through your past.” She sipped her drink. “Much more than you would have liked, I’m sure, but given the circumstances, we can’t afford to leave anything to chance.”

“What circumstances might those be?”

Margot turned her eyes to the security team. “Wait outside, please.”

They nodded curtly before exiting the room, pulling the door shut behind them.

She let the silence stretch for a moment, evaluating him. Spencer’s hands fidgeted as she made her appraisal, more out of habit than outright nervousness. Whatever she’d brought him here for, he was convinced it would be quick. It wasn’t _him_ she was after, surely. It was the team. She would no doubt cut him loose once she understood that he and the team were no longer one in the same.

Taking another sip, Margot’s eyes, sharp and quick, locked onto his. “I’m assuming you’re familiar with my family’s name?”

“I am. I know you and your wife, Alana Bloom, have done tremendous work to reimagine and reconstruct the Verger brand. Sustainable farming is much more far-reaching than the slaughterhouse business. You’ve done a lot of great work in the field. And I just read Dr. Bloom’s response to the Knight and Watson paper positing that Jack the Ripper was, himself, a slaughterman, discussing the links between working in a slaughterhouse and the propensity for violence toward humans and animals alike. The paper itself was quite interesting, and I found her remarks to be very illuminating. She brought up several fascinating points that lent a lot of insight to the original paper.”

Margot’s lips quirked into an easy smile that, while fleeting, made her seem genuinely pleased. “I’ll let her know you read it.” She paused to take another sip of bourbon. That sip led to a deep swallow.

“And what do you know of my inheritance?”

Spencer paused, unsure of how to answer. “Forbes’ recent estimate of your net worth was … impressive.”

“That isn’t what I meant.” She set her drink on the end table, resting her temple on the tips of her long fingers. Locking him with a gaze far cooler and more collected than she’d greeted him with at the door, she rephrased. “What do you know about how I secured my inheritance?”

The profiler squirmed slightly under her stare, pursing his lips and furrowing his brow. “I, uh, I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Yes, you do. I’d like an honest answer.”

Running his hands through his hair, shorter now since his release from prison, he inhaled sharply, steeling himself. He wasn’t sure what kind of test this was, but he didn’t appreciate games where the rules were unclear.

“All right. If I’m answering honestly, your inheritance was strange, to say the least. Your brother didn’t keep the best company. It seems like the only people who spoke kindly of him were a few of his business partners and the members of your family who were more concerned about the family name than the violence he committed. The personal accounts of your brother—and his sealed court cases—showed him to be a cruel and abusive predator. It seems highly unlikely that a textbook sadist and narcissist would have donated his sperm, especially if it put power in your hands rather than is own. It also seems unlikely that you would voluntarily remain with a partner who shared your brother’s cruelty, making it improbable that Mason and Dr. Bloom would have gotten along well enough for him to voluntarily donate sperm to her.”

He paused, reading her body language. She was calm, breath even and slow, her posture relaxed. Her eyes were interested, but not surprised. There was no quick, darting glance, no loss of color in her cheeks. She was perfectly at ease with the accusation building up within his chest.   

“Go on,” she prompted. He thought she almost sounded a touch bored.

Clearing his throat, he continued. “Your brother was a monster. But,” he paused, taking a final hard look at her. “Drowning and asphyxiation by eel doesn’t fit the rest of the pattern of the crime scene. The Chesapeake Ripper drenched Muskrat Farm in blood that night. These weren’t murders of convenience, and they weren’t elevated to any sort of tableau. This was raw violence, vengeance that was almost casual. Mason’s death wasn’t _that_. Mason’s death was personal. It was intimate. The Ripper didn’t kill Mason Verger.”

He paused, letting the next thought linger in the air between them before he was able to form his next words.

“You and Dr. Bloom both had motive. I can theorize reasons why either of you would have done it, though I suspect you did it together and let the Ripper claim the murder as his own to protect each other.”

Defying any expectation he had of her reaction, she smiled at him, her mouth pulling up at the corners to make her look both pleased and aggrieved all at once.

“Call the devil by his name, Dr. Reid.”

It was the last response he expected, given what he’d said to her, an heiress and a magnate. He’d expected a denial, coy laughter, something pertaining to herself. “I’m sorry?”

“Calling him the Ripper dehumanizes him. It relegates him to a set of parameters and statistics that you think you can measure and quantify. I assure you, there’s no quantifying him.”

She leaned forward, resting her elbow on her knee. She made sure she had his full attention, her face holding that odd mixture of intense scrutiny and distant reserve.

“You need to think of him as human if you’re going to catch him.”

Spencer’s laugh escaped as a heavy breath through his nose. It was a brash, ragged sound that felt oddly improper in front of his host. Her eyes narrowed, and he felt the heat of embarrassment rise along his neck. “Catch him? The Ripper’s dead.”

“ _Hannibal Lecter_ is very much alive, and it’s in your best interest to get on a first name basis with him, Dr. Reid. My life, and the lives of my wife and son, depend on it.”

Spencer pushed himself back into his seat, as if recoiling from her. He gripped the arms of his chair, thinking back on the case files. He’d been lucky to avoid the Ripper case and all the fallout that crashed down with it. His work with the BAU in Virginia had kept him distant, had kept him unavailable, unable to assist the Baltimore branch when the whole mess came down around them in a torrent of blood.

He cleared his throat, unable to hold her gaze. His eyes darted from his hands to the floor to the fire, anything as he desperately tried to unsee the images sealed inside his mind. He didn’t have the luxury of forgetting a case, but he would have carried the Ripper murders with him even without his keen memory.

“He can’t be alive.”

“Oh, he is.” Her voice took on a peculiar lilt, almost songlike. That she could maintain her composure, could still appear so unaffected, did more than mystify him. It slithered between his ribs, icy and sharp, and rang through him with the clear, cold echo of fear. He had worked the Foyet case. He’d sunk himself into the mire with Cat Adams to play her malicious games. He’d seen more murders, mutilations, and assaults that he had any business carrying with him. But he’d never seen anything like what the Ripper did—or what Will Graham did under the Ripper’s watchful eye.

What had _she_ seen, to remain so calm at the thought of the Ripper being alive? What else had she endured?

Margot reclined into her seat once more, picking up her drink and holding it in her lap, staring into the amber liquid as it settled. “Two days ago, a body was discovered in Geneva. I assume you’re familiar with Dali’s Crucifixion?”

Spencer nodded.

“The victim, Simon Vetsch, was found posed like Christ, and he was, indeed, pinned to a cross. He was held in place with shards of stained glass. Huge shards, piercing all the way through his body, stabbing into the wood. They also discovered that he was no longer in possession of his lungs, kidneys, or liver.”

“That certainly is ornate, but it’s not necessarily the work of the Ripper.”

Margot arched an elegant eyebrow at him. “Perhaps not by itself. But Vetsch was also discovered to have been a killer. He’s been hunting at churches, taking the pious and making them eager to meet their maker in their final moments. He prayed with them until he killed them. The profilers in Geneva think he was trying to communicate with God. Funny, how our prayers can go so far awry if we aren’t careful.”

Spencer considered the evidence—barely evidence, mere conjecture at this stage—turning it over and over in his mind, piecing together information stored in the recesses of his memory. He saw the connection’s tenuous threads beginning to form, cobwebbing around him, yet he asked, “What makes you so sure it’s him?”

“I’ve looked the devil in the eye, Dr. Reid. I know Hannibal’s work when I see it. Will’s, too.”

“What makes you think Will Graham is even alive, let alone involved?”

“If one is alive, they both are. It’s the nature of the beast with those two. One’s heart beats, the other feels the rush of life in his chest. They are inexorably linked. The posing is Hannibal’s, that much is clear. The kill was most likely shared. The victim, I imagine, belongs to Will. It has an air of righteousness about it that Hannibal’s murders lacked.”

She seemed lost in thought for a moment. “ _Lack_ , I should say.”

Leaning forward so his elbows touched his kneecaps, Spencer rested his chin on his folded fingers. “Even that were true,” he started, his tone holding an edge of disbelief, “you’ve read my history. You know I’m no longer with the Virginia team. I can’t be of any use to you.”

“Wrong again, Dr. Reid.” She said it with a sigh, as if she were explaining something to her six-year-old son, and not to a man who was widely praised for his intellect. She mimicked his posture, holding his gaze. “You’re of more use to me now than you could ever be with your team. Before he escaped, Hannibal told Alana he’d return for us. He said that our lives and the life of our son belong to him. He isn’t one to break his promises. Away from your team, I believe you are singularly equipped to prevent him from keeping this one.”

A beat of silence dropped between them. “Why?”

“Let’s say you’re correct in your assumption of how I came to ensure my inheritance. Knowing what you do of my brother, do you think he deserved to die?”

Spencer let his eyes drop the the ground once more. He felt the weight of the question press on his shoulders, wrapping around him with the intimacy of a lover and the insistence of an unwanted guest. It reached its fingers into his chest and squeezed.

For all the showmanship Margot Verger had demonstrated, bringing him here, asking these questions, she had done an exceptional job of backing him into this corner. By asking him to profile her, she ensured that he understood her. She showed her cards from the first moment and he still hadn’t evaded the strike. She had backed him precisely into the confession he had been avoiding for longer than he cared to admit.

“Yes.” His voice wavered, the word heavy and bitter in his mouth. “He deserved to die.”

“And do you believe my son deserves to die? That my wife and I deserve to die, even if we made that choice for Mason?”

He swallowed roughly. “No.”

“You believe you’re capable, and deserving, of making that distinction?”

Spencer’s mind conjured an image of Hotch, of how bruised and bloodied his hands had been after beating the last breath out of George Foyet. He thought of the conviction he once held that his superior had had no choice when Foyet cornered him after killing Haley. He thought, not for the first time, that even if Hotch had another choice, perhaps he’d still made the right one.

Spencer didn’t answer, but his silence seemed to split him open and lay him bare to Margot, showing her exactly where the rot in his soul had taken hold.

She leaned back once more, the firelight shadowing her in a way that made her seem all at once vulnerable and ethereally untouchable. She drained her glass, glancing into the flames. “That’s why Alana and I chose you. You have that same streak of righteousness in you. That’s a good thing, Dr. Reid. You’ll need it to catch them.”

“Them?”

“Wherever Hannibal Lecter is, Will Graham will be with him. We want you to find them, Dr. Reid. We want you to track them down and asses how keen Hannibal is on keeping his promise. If he’s content to live and let live, then that’s the end of it. If he’s working his way back to us, well, that will require some intervention.”

Her words didn’t hit right away. He felt them strike but didn’t register their sting for several moments. When they did, his mouth drew into a narrow line, brow falling into a sharp frown. “Are you asking me to kill them?”

She raised her eyebrows again, though not in surprise. “I’m asking you to make my priorities your own. We’re offering to take you on as a private contractor as a member of our security team. We’ll see to it that your mother is provided for while you’re away. You’ll report to us and our contacts with your progress until you’re able to locate Hannibal and Will and tell us what their intentions are. Once those intentions are clear, we’ll see what needs to be done.”

She paused, making sure her next words landed just as she intended. “Given the recent developments in your career, some time away from Virginia may not be the worst idea.”

She stood, then, raising her palms to the fire. “There’s a room prepared for you down the hall. We understand if you need some time to get your affairs in order, but if you intend to accept our proposal, we’ll need you on the plane to Geneva in two days.”

After bidding him goodnight, she was gone, leaving Spencer to the mercy of his mind in the dancing firelight. His thoughts crowded him, a noisy, scattered mess of knots and fraying thread. All his strategies, all his knowledge abandoned him, left him adrift. He’d known his place in Virginia, had cut himself a crevice into which he could easily fit. He felt exposed here, stripped and scrubbed down to his barest self.

How had Margot known? She’d sized him up immediately. She hadn’t even had to meet him—she sought him out because of it. Because of the darkness in him. A darkness she thought would lead him to Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham.

He scowled, rubbing his palms over his face. He’d read the files. He knew what Hannibal and Will were capable of, even if he still harbored some questions about how those capabilities came to be.

_I’m not Will Graham. I don’t have that same darkness in me._

But as he cast his attention back into the flames, Spencer felt the untruth of that sentiment settle in his bones with an uncomfortable, brittle weight. He may not share Will Graham’s darkness, but he couldn’t deny that there was a velvet, ink-dark spill expanding inside him. He was unsure of how much longer he could avoid calling it by its name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The paper Spencer mentions about Jack the Ripper is a real academic paper. Cite your sources, kids! 
> 
> Knight, Andrew, and Katherine Watson. “Was Jack the Ripper a Slaughterman? Human-Animal Violence and the World’s Most Infamous Serial Killer.” _Animals_ , vol. 7, no. 12, Oct. 2017, p. 30.


	2. Geneva, The Hotel

Spencer’s phone vibrated from his pocket, calling his attention away from the body. He pulled it free and glanced at the brightened screen.

_Penelope Garcia  
_ _Mobile_

For just a moment, he considered answering, wanting to feel a true and honest joy at hearing Garcia’s cheerful voice. _Greetings, Boy Wonder_ , she’d say, warmth spilling through space and across satellites.

He declined the call, burying his phone back into the recesses of his pocket. He couldn’t manage warmth, didn’t want it. Not now.

“Sorry about that.”

The coroner didn’t seem phased. “As you can see,” she repeated, “the glass pierced Vetsch’s body completely. No other evidence was found, no fingerprints, no fibers, nothing.”

“Have you determined cause of death?”

“Exsanguination from a severed left carotid.” She gestured not toward the rougher gashes left by the glass, but to a clean, surgically precise slit across the man’s throat. “He bled out quickly.”

“But that’s not how he killed his victims.”

The coroner nodded. “Correct. Vetsch cut the trachea, so his victims died of aspiration of blood and asphyxiation. Their deaths were not so quick.”

Spencer pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes and casting the net of his memory backwards into a past that wasn’t his own. Hannibal Lecter’s murders held an air of brutality; Spencer recalled that Cassie Boyle’s lungs were torn out while she was still breathing. Will Graham’s known body count was significantly lower and less stark in its violence: Garret Jacob Hobbs shot to death, Randall Tier beaten, Francis Dolarhyde…

Perhaps Dolarhyde was better left in his own category.

Given the cruelty of Vetsch’s own murders, Spencer wasn’t sure a cut throat fit Hannibal’s pattern. It seemed almost benevolent. If Will Graham had a profile, this would fit his more than Hannibal’s. Unless it was shared, as Alana and Margot suspected.

Spencer opened his eyes. “What were his stomach contents?”

“Wine and escargot.”

“No human flesh?”

The coroner locked him in a hard, curious stare. “Why would you ask that? He was a killer, not a cannibal.”

In the interest of keeping off Hannibal and Will’s radar, Alana and Margot had been selective in who they brought into their circle. The coroner was on an outer ring. “Sometimes there’s some overlap,” he answered simply.

The coroner regarded him for a long moment. “Who did you say you worked for?”

“You can direct those inqiuries to Captain Altherr. I’m here at her request.”

_Hers, Margot Verger’s and Alana Bloom’s_ , he thought. They’d provided him with a suitably safe cover story and plenty of local resources. They’d made sure he could navigate with enough authority to ensure he did what he’d been hired to do.  

Lowering his face over the victim’s throat, he examined the wound more closely. The cut was expertly inflicted. There were no signs of hesitation, and the precision indicated a thorough knowledge of anatomy. That certainly fit Hannibal’s profile.

_But Hannibal is as dominant a personality as any I’ve seen. What kind of dominant killer allows their partner to dictate how they kill?_

He needed to dig deeper into the relationship between Hannibal and Will. If he was going to confirm that this was indeed their work, and if he was going to find them, he needed to understand them.

Straightening, Spencer removed his latex gloves and thanked the coroner for her time. Shouldering his bag, he dug back into his pocket to peek at his phone.

_1 New Voicemail_

He let the screen go dark.

Shaking his head, he moved through the morgue, nodding politely to the staff who had helped him find his way, stopping only to bundle himself into his coat and purple scarf. Autumn had draped an early chill over Geneva. The air was hard and cold, though there was still a glow of sunlight clinging to the afternoon. Had Spencer stopped to consider it, he would have found it lovely.

Instead, he pushed through the glass doors and began walking, heading for his hotel. Margot and Alana made sure he was comfortable and able to move freely about the city, not a demerit to be found on his passport or in his public records. Garcia would have been impressed. It was a freedom he hadn’t anticipated, and he found his lack of confinement disorienting. It was as if heavy weights had been lifted from his shoulders, yet he lacked the will to stand straight.

He pondered the feeling as he entered his hotel room, slouching into an overstuffed chair beneath the soft light of a reading lamp. He pulled open a cardboard box at his feet, trying to decide where to begin.

He selected the police statements from Bedelia Du Maurier, taken after she was found drugged in an apartment in Florence. He paid particular attention to her mentions of life with Hannibal, their meals together, what they ate and drank, noting the brief mentions of wine and escargot. He had a copy of her book waiting on the desk; he read that next.

He made his way through the thick of it. Through the file on Will when he was arrested. The revisions to that file after he was found gutted and near death in Hannibal’s home. The notes taken after Hannibal was handcuffed in the snow outside Will’s front door. The file on Francis Dolarhyde, and the last known chapter of the tangled story between Will and Hannibal, was in its own box at the foot of the bed.

Spencer had read sections of the case before, but he’d never ingested the whole of it. He stopped several times to close his eyes, knowing the fatigue wasn’t there, but in his mind.

_Why did I do this? Why am I here?_

Sighing, he slipped his fingertips over his phone, pulling up his voicemail menu. He let the screen time out twice before he could finally listen to the message.

“Hey, Boy Wonder. It’s me, your feisty fresh tech queen.”

A crackle of static as she went silent. When she spoke again, her voice had lost its levity.

“I really miss you. I just want to know that you’re okay. I know you think you’re going through this alone, but I promise you, you aren’t. We can help. We just need you to talk to us. Let us in.”

Another long pause.

“When you get this, call me, okay? Even if it’s just to say hi, just some sign of life. Please?”

The message ended. Silence bled into the room, as fragile as winter’s first skin of ice over a pond. Spencer set his phone face down on the arm of the chair and resumed his reading, rifling the edges of the pages, their brittle sound fracturing the heavy quiet. It comforted him.

What could he tell her? That there was a stain in him that wouldn’t come clean? That he felt a thread of something dark braiding through him that he couldn’t weed out?

That he still jolted awake in the middle of the night, heart racing, convinced he was still in his cell—and that when he thought of the person who put him there, he found himself slipping, sinking, fantasizing about a very particular brand of vengeance.  

His mind wandered back, so many years ago now, to Tobias Hankel. He’d never felt fear like that before, that slick, burning rush of panic, that consuming desperation to make the pain stop. He’d felt it again, over and over, until the next hit of Dilaudid eased the fire, brought him back within the borderlines of his sanity. Dilaudid made his body livable again. It made him feel safe inside the sickness.

Where was his team then?

This corner of his anger was illogical, he knew that. The team had grown, evolved; the ones who turned a blind eye to him were gone or changed. Those weren’t the same people he worked with now. Still, he thought of them, the ones who’d left, of Elle and Morgan, of Gideon, who left him more than once.

_Why was my addiction an open secret? If they wanted in so badly, why didn’t they start there?_

He’d been sober for over a decade. Cat took that from him. She’d taken everything from him. She’d even used Maeve against him, twisted that pure, sacred memory into something vile, something that roiled and burned. When he thought of Maeve now, he couldn’t help but let his thoughts slide to Cat. She corrupted his love, and it cut a trench of bitterness and grief through him that he feared he would never overcome.

He let his head fall back against the pillowed cushion, his anger pricking against him like thorns. It was an anger that hadn’t billowed in quite some time, had perhaps never gotten enough oxygen to call itself a true flame. But the embers glowed, ever so faintly, and now they’d sparked. Spencer couldn’t call his team. Not now. Not until he cleared the smoke and ash and flame from his mind.

_And what if I can’t?_

Well, he supposed he would learn to live with that. He’d learned to live with a great deal of things that, at one time or another, he thought would surely break him.

With a lonely ache clinging to his ribs, he picked through the files again, plucking free a stack of psychological reports written by Frederick Chilton. The tone of the entries made Spencer raise his eyebrows in disbelief.

_This guy was really a psychiatrist? How?_

Still, there was valuable information to be gleaned. About Will Graham’s recovered memories, about his relationship with Hannibal Lecter. Cocky and condescending as Chilton’s writing was, he made several points that Spencer made note of:

> Patient W. Graham now remembers the use of light as part of his therapy. Paired with his encephalitis, it seems probable, even likely, that light therapy could be used to induce blackouts and seizures. Patient could not have been responsive during these periods, or would have been in a state where he was highly susceptible to suggestion.

Another read:

> Patient received a visit from H. today. Patient displayed a thorough control of his emotional state, despite his insistence that H. manipulated and framed him. When they speak, there are distinct tones of pride in both of their voices. Patient does not seem cowed; if anything, he speaks as though he is a rival, an equal. Whatever game H. started, patient seems intent to finish.

And another:

> Patient was released this morning. It is only a matter of time before he resumes his relationship with H. Truly, no moth was ever drawn to such a dangerous flame. It is a dynamic both fascinating and horrifying. For everything that H. has allegedly (and I use this word only to lawfully protect myself) done to W., W.’s empathy allows him to understand it all. What must it be like, to observe your own undoing, and see its merit?

Though deeply sensationalized, Chilton’s entries sketched an interesting silhouette of the relationship between Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham. It spoke of an intense and mutually assured destruction, but one that was not limited by any set of rules Spencer knew. As he worked his way through the files, the usual benchmarks he used for a case evaded him. There were no stressors as Spencer was accustomed to seeing. Will Graham’s history was littered with what should have been triggering moments—his murder of Garret Jacob Hobbs, his encephalitis, his imprisonment and release, the bloodbath at Hannibal Lecter’s home, working the Red Dragon case. The man’s career was a constellation of trauma. There should have been more violence in the lead-up to his final confrontation with Dr. Lecter and Francis Dolarhyde.

The voice of Alana Bloom echoed in his mind, replaying part of their conversation from the morning he boarded the plane.

“Finding them won’t be just a matter of putting together a simple geographical or psychological profile. They defy expectation and assumption. You won’t catch them based on their past behaviors. You have to be able to anticipate what the next stage of their evolution is.

“Will and Hannibal are intricately connected. The boundaries between them blurred a long time ago, and they’ve had three years to fall into perfect synchronization. You won’t find a reason for them, Dr. Reid. There’s no defining moment that created them, as individuals or as they are together. They’re a series of spirals and echoes, feeding into each other and defining each other all at once. Logic is going to fail you. You have to turn to the aesthetics of pathos.”

Frustration squirmed at the edges of Spencer’s mind, making him gnaw his thumbnail down to the quick. _How?_ How was he supposed to disregard their history in order to divine their present?

And why did he have the tight, mean feeling in his gut that Will Graham would have been able to tell him the answer? After spending so much time digging through his and Hannibal’s history, Spencer found himself nettled with a curiosity about them. What set them apart? What distinguished their talents from what Spencer himself strove so hard to perfect?

_Besides the murders_ , the thought ruefully.

He sighed, setting the files aside and standing to stretch his body. He was chasing his tail around these men. He needed a break.

Rifling through the personal reading material he’d brought for the trip, he made his way down to the hotel’s restaurant and found himself sipping a seltzer at the bar. He flipped through a recently published study, reading a bit of new research into the stimulation of chondroblasts and osteoclasts after sustaining a broken bone to reduce healing time. Annoyance flickered in his mind as Hannibal and Will resurfaced in his thoughts, the nature of cells ringing a familiar tone in Spencer’s mind.

_Chondroblasts: the cells that make cartilage and help heal the broken bone._

_Osteoclasts: the cells that break down bone material so that the broken bone can be reshaped._

The distinction stuck with him. He wondered about the true dynamic between Will and Hannibal. Who had broken whom to rebuild the other in his image? How many times had they undergone breakage and rebuilding in spite of each other?

_Or was it for each other?_

Such intricate destruction bespoke intimate connection. It was a pairing not marked by dominance and submission in the way other unsubs demonstrated these traits. The murder and posing of Simon Vetsch was well composed, orderly. If Margot and Alana hadn’t told him to look for the actions of two men, Spencer would have guessed one person had carried it out themselves. If Hannibal and Will were behind it, it meant they were truly in harmony with each other.

There was no strict competition, no encouragement through increased sadism. If anything, this murder was demure for their standards. For two people to achieve the same goal from one action, for them to move perfectly in sync without any signs of hesitation or domination over the other—for two killers to _compromise_ , to agree to what was by all accounts a gentle murder—it meant theirs was a relationship built from mutual respect, reciprocity. From pleasure. From joy.

_From love._

Spencer lifted his head and stared at the back of the bar, curling the idea around and around in his mind. It threaded a bolt of electric blue curiosity and anticipation through him.

_It’s a demonstration of love._

And for the first time in ages, Spencer wasn’t just working a case. He was interested.

There was a flicker of movement off to his right as the stool next to him was pulled back. A tall, slender woman took her place beside him. She was wrapped in a forest green pea coat, her black hair pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck. She offered him a polite smile before turning her attention to the bartender, greeting him and placing her order in Japanese. Spencer let his eyes drop to the paper, though his mind was back upstairs, eagerly combing back through his files.

He was pulled from his thoughts when his neighbor spoke, her voice soft and low above the hum of the restaurant behind them. “Are you a hunter, or a collector?”

She’d said it so gently that Spencer wasn’t sure she was addressing him at first. He glanced up to find her looking straight ahead, watching the bartender prepare her drink.

“I’m sorry?”

“Hunters want to put the beasts down. To take their hides and spin creatures into stories that the hunter can control and destroy. Collectors want to put the beasts on display, so the beasts can tell their own stories, but to the credit of the collector.”

She turned her head, leveling him with a dark and curious gaze. “Which are you?”

Spencer frowned, trying to discern the meaning in her words. He felt as though he’d been submerged into a riddle, one where the question and the answer were hidden from him, leaving him suspended in uncertainty.

“I’m sorry, you must have me confused with someone else. I’m not a hunter or a collector.”

A smile ghosted over her face. “A tourist, then, looking for monsters at the edge of the world. Be cautious. You never know when the monsters might glance back.”

As the bartender set down her order, she left her payment on the counter, stood, and pushed her stool back against the bar, turning away without another word. Spencer watched her go, brow furrowed, chewing his bottom lip.

His excitement forgotten, an uneasy feeling pooled in his chest. Whose attention had he drawn? As he began to stare into the murmuring abyss that was the mystery of Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter, what was opening its eye to stare back?


	3. Geneva, The Bibliothèque de Genève

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something to keep us occupied during #RDC5 and #RDCSofaCon :)

The next morning found Spencer sequestered in Captain Lonna Altherr’s office, the door shut against her team as she showed him more photos of Simon Vetsch, impaled on stained glass. While he tried to begin their conversation in her native German, she steered them back to English.

“I understand you saw the body yesterday?”

“I did.”

“Do you have any new insights to share?” She glanced at her watch. “We’re due to speak with Ms. Verger and Dr. Bloom at noon.”

Still inspecting the photos, Spencer nodded. “If this is the work of Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham, they’re remarkably in tune with each other. Pairs that kill together never show this level of cohesion and consistency. There’s almost always a dominant and a submissive personality, but if this crime was committed by two people, they performed as true equals. It’s difficult to tell where one’s work ended and the other’s began.”

Captain Altherr leaned back in her chair, brow furrowing. “But what does that tell us about their next move? Ms. Verger and Dr. Bloom will want to know how this information pertains to their safety.”

Spencer spread the photos out a bit more, pulling back to evaluate them for their sum, rather than their details. “I think it means they’re safe for the time being,” he began, tugging his fingers through his hair. “Hannibal was—is—meticulous. He spent a great deal of time and energy building his relationship with Will. Judging from what I’ve read, he wouldn’t jeopardize that, not even to resume killing.”

He paused for a moment, considering. “Assuming they ever really stopped.”

“You’re sure Hannibal has that level of control over his impulses?”

Spencer turned her question over in his mind several times, that electric blue spark of interest popping inside him. “Murder was never an impulse for Hannibal. He’s not a killer who fills some basic need by killing. He took life because he wanted to, not because he had to. Will was the only one who could understand that, who really saw the full scope of what Hannibal was doing.”

He paused, adjusting himself in his seat, his words bubbling up rapidly. “If they’re killing again, it’s a very deliberate choice, not just some _need_. That’s beneath them. It’s the mark of a lower class of killer. That leads me to believe they feel secure. They had time to select their victim and stage his murder, and they had time to savor it. There’s definite significance in the fact that they chose this victim, here.”

He felt his thoughts whirling, analyses brimming up in his imagination. “I don’t think they live here. Wherever they’ve been for the past three years, _that’s_ been their home. Geneva isn’t home, but it’s certainly a space where they feel safe. They feel like they can play here. It’s too soon to say whether they’ll make their way back to go after Ms. Verger and Dr. Bloom. This could be a warm-up or it could be the only time they kill again for another three years. It’s impossible to tell. They’re—”

He stumbled over his words, searching for the right language. “They defy all expectations. They’re fascinating.”

Spencer wasn’t smiling, but even he could hear the eagerness in his voice. The captain evaluated him, allowing a ripple of silence to spread between them. “It seems _you_ are capable of understanding both of them. Tell me, what’s the line that distinguishes you from Will Graham?”

The question landed with a blow. His usually quick mind left him speechless. The captain read his discomfort and allowed it to blister for a moment longer. “Perhaps that came out harsher than intended. It’s not meant as an accusation, Dr. Reid. But it alarms me when you say you find them so interesting. Will Graham found Hannibal Lecter interesting, and look where that interest led him. So it offers me some peace of mind to know—to ask—what exactly separates you from Will Graham?”

Spencer didn’t have a response ready. He floundered, feeling as though a much needed ray of light was disappearing as the ceiling closed over his head. He swallowed roughly, trying to piece together an answer.

“We may both be profilers, but our approaches are wholly different. We study human behavior, try to identify the reasoning behind it. Will was sought out for his empathy, but I’m called in for knowledge. Where I evaluate a crime scene, Will lived it. I have a distance from murder that Will Graham didn’t have. I try to understand killers from the outside in. Will did it from the inside out.”

He watched Captain Altherr’s face, trying to see if he’d given the correct answer. The logic felt sound. He felt like he’d given a convincing argument as to why he still fit into her world, where he was on one side of a great, dark barrier, and Hannibal and Will were on the other.

But that didn’t stop an odd feeling of disappointment from unfurling in his chest. A feeling of want. A feeling that he was somehow clutching at a silver medal. Spencer saw the barrier and wanted to lean closer, to better see the other side.

Captain Altherr nodded then, her shoulders releasing their tension. He’d answered appropriately, it seemed. “A good distinction to remember,” she said. “It seems that everyone who got caught up in the cyclone that was Hannibal and Will carried regrets with them long after the storm had passed. I don’t want to see you end up carrying your own.”

He remembered the voicemail from Garcia lingering on his phone, still unanswered. He tried to steer his thoughts away from the team and the job he’d left back in Virgina. Dark knots of anger tightened in his chest. If only the captain knew the regrets already sewn into him.

He nodded in response, keeping his bitter musings to himself. “I understand.” It was all he could allow himself to say before the tide of his true feelings would flood into his speech.

Captain Altherr glanced at her computer screen and sighed. “I have some other cases that need my attention before our call. There’s a small conference room down the hall where you can wait until noon, if you don’t want to walk back to your hotel.”

Spencer stood, collecting the Vetsch files. As he turned to leave, he thought back to the woman at the bar the day before. Her talk about hunters and collectors had stuck with him through the night, her hooded insinuation tugging at the back of his mind. Taking a quick glance through the files in his hand, he asked, “Did you ever come across any information about known associates of Hannibal’s and Will’s? Allies, specifically. Anyone who slipped them information before they disappeared?”

The captain thought for a moment, but shook her head. “Not that I can remember, but I can review notes from the case. Is there someone specific you’re looking for?”

“Maybe not. Just teasing out a few different ideas. It’s nothing we need to report on quite yet, not until I have a solid theory.”

He ducked out of her office and made his way into the quiet sanctuary of the conference room, setting the files down. Making himself as comfortable as one can at a conference table, he sighed, sliding his phone onto the tabletop. Consciously unclenching his jaw, he pulled up his voicemail screen and listened to Garcia’s message again.

“Hey, Boy Wonder. It’s me, your feisty fresh tech queen … I really miss you. I just want to know that you’re okay. I know you think you’re going through this alone, but I promise you, you aren’t. We can help. We just need you to talk to us. Let us in … When you get this, call me, okay? Even if it’s just to say hi, just some sign of life. Please?”

The anger didn’t flood him right away today. Instead, it started as a distant pain, the numb, stabbing sensation of a limb gone to sleep. He heard Garcia’s voice, but in his mind’s eye, he saw her through the smudged and blurry window of the prison’s visitation room, heard her voice, faded and low, through a prison’s phone system. It was the same when he thought of JJ, of Prentiss, of Rossi. He no longer saw them as his team. When he thought of them, it was through the filter of his incarceration, making them seem more distant, less focused, cold. They felt like strangers, not because they had changed, but because he had. He’d lost their rhythm, and without the press of their gravity, he had grown in a different direction, his psyche bending to take a different shape.

_But that’s not the whole of it, is it?_

Spencer could cite statistics unendingly, could absorb new topics and theories with a speed both endearing and alarming. That left no room in his mind for lies, especially not to himself.

_It’s not just that they got to continue living while I was in prison. It’s the things I feel now that I’m out._

It was the anger that tightened his jaw, the restlessness that pried his eyes open when he tried to sleep. It was the phantom pain thudding through his ribs and back, memories taking the shape of fists and feet hitting him again and again and again.

It was the ache in his own fists, a pulsing desire to inflict that pain back on the ones who’d hurt him, the ones who’d framed him.

It was his fantasy of killing Cat Adams.

He imagined poisoning her, the way he’d poisoned Malcolm. He imagined taking the hurt and bile and insanity she’d wrought and heaping it back on her sevenfold. She was toxic, a surging mass of hatred and hurt, and oh, how he wanted to lay waste to her, reduce her to rot and bone.

Spencer jerked in his chair, sitting straight and rigid. He’d carried his rage with him, tucked inside his chest throughout his imprisonment. He’d kept it leashed through the investigation, keeping himself coiled. But once he knew the whole truth of what Cat had done to him, he felt his control tug itself from his fingers with a searing lurch.

Once it was gone, he knew he couldn’t stay with the BAU. Not when his desire for a vicious revenge boiled so close to the surface.

Forcing himself to loosen his muscles, he reclined once more, taking three deep, stabilizing breaths. What he needed now was focus. From focus, he could rebuild a sense of control.

Spreading the files out before him, he threw himself back into an examination of the photos. He’d memorized the police reports, but he reread them anyway. He needed to get outside of his own head, if only for a couple of hours. He didn’t want to think about Cat or his team. He wanted to lose himself, even if it was in Hannibal and Will.

Resting his fingertips against his lips, he focused on the photos of Simon Vetsch’s body.

_Was there significance in the glass used? Stained glass could be a callback to Vetsch’s own victims, marking him as a killer. It could be a play on the idea of staining, that he was somehow represented in this broken image of something that used to be holy._

Spencer sighed, resting his temple on his fist. _Maybe Hannibal and Will just have a sense of whimsy._

It was from this sideways view that he caught it, so suddenly obvious that he wanted to scream. One of the photos caught a section of the crowd behind the police tape. Faces turned toward the camera, faces being urged to look away.

Except one.

The face was turned away, but he still saw all he needed to. He recognized the tall, slim figure wrapped in the forest green pea coat, and the black hair collected professionally at the nape of the neck.

_Are you a hunter or a collector?_

He didn’t have time to react. The door swung inward, Captain Altherr appearing in the doorway. Her eyes were narrowed, her coat already on.

“There’s another body,” she said, voice low. “We need to go.”

Grabbing the photo, Spencer threw on his own jacket and fell into step beside the captain. “Another body so soon?” he murmured.

“It validates you theory, doctor,” she responded dryly. “Our suspects are still here. And they are, indeed, having fun.”

 

* * *

 

The crowd shifted tightly outside the doors of The Bibliothèque de Genève. Employees clustered to one side, speaking rapidly, while early-rising students, a smattering of parents, and a curious group of older adults listened carefully. Police held them at bay, deflecting inquiries as to why the library had been closed so suddenly.

Spencer followed Captain Altherr past all of them, their heads turning in unison to watch the agents pass. She greeted the two officers at the door before moving inside, Spencer at her heels. He had always dreamed of visiting the Bibliothèque de Genève; he wished it was under different circumstances. We wouldn’t have an opportunity to explore now.

He followed Captain Altherr to the eastern facade of the main building into the Salle Eugénie Droz Reading Room, where a young man trying to research a paper had discovered the body.

It was a gorgeous display.

Spencer felt a snag of shame at the thought, but there was no other way to describe it, horrific as it was.

The morning sunlight pooled in through the tall windows, bathing the body in white-gold light that exploded in a kaleidoscope of color when it touched her.

They’d taken her eyes. In their place, positioned with the utmost tenderness and care, rested delicate gemstone violets, their amethyst petals inlaid with gold. Sprays of purple light glittered off the victim’s cheeks and forehead, casting a loveliness over her that left Spencer unnerved and mystified.

Her arms, raised in an oval over her head, had been laid bare. At the elbow, they’d taken skin and sinew alike, flesh peeled clean so that all that remained was bone, shadowed with the rust of dried blood. Braided between the ulna and the radius of both arms were orchids, of purple so dark it looked like spilled wine, and of white so bright Spencer couldn’t help but avert his eyes from the luminescent glow.

And woven into her hair, blue clutches of larkspur, as deep and lovely as the sea.

In the aching trench of his chest where Spencer knew naught but loneliness and rage, he felt the curling blossom of awe. He had seen so many variations on the horrors of death, but he had never seen its elegance or grace.

_It’s beautiful._

Captain Altherr placed her hand on his elbow, shaking him from his enchantment. “Awful, isn’t it?”

He pressed his lips together and managed to nod. “Awful,” he repeated, his voice catching in his throat.

She drew away from him, kneeling down over the body to inspect the arms. She glanced up at the coroner, the same woman Spencer had met with about Vetsch’s body. “Have you determined the cause of death?”

The coroner shook her head. “Not yet. My preliminary guess is blood loss when they removed the flesh and muscle from her arms, but we need to investigate further before we can be sure.”

“Have you identified the victim?”

“No. But if she drew the attention of Vetsch’s killer, there’s a chance she may not be entirely innocent.”

“Killers,” Spencer corrected absently, kneeling to examine the glittering violets. Captain Altherr glanced up at him.

“You’re positive it’s them?”

Spencer tilted his head to the side, watching the amethyst shift in the sun. “Based on what I’ve gathered from their profiles so far, I’m pretty confident.”

“Why? Walk me through it.”

He leaned back on his heels, taking in the scene. “They didn’t kill her here,” he started, gesturing to the clean carpet. “There’s no blood, not even droplets. They placed her here, gently. There’s no sign of trauma to the body, other than the eyes and arms. It doesn’t even look like they took her organs. For all intents and purposes, they took care of her.”

Captain Altherr froze him in a cold stare. “They killed her, Dr. Reid.”

He shook his head, tongue darting out to lick his lips. “You don’t understand. They didn’t do it _to_ her, they did it _for_ each other.” He pointed to the braids of blue flowers in her hair. “Look at the flowers they chose. Larkspur symbolizes joy, levity, and ardent attachment. But it’s also been said to represent haughtiness and hubris. It shows not just a duality, but an understanding and acceptance of that duality.

“And orchids? They’re a representation of exotic beauty. They can symbolize both mature charm and capricious grace. Purple orchids are given as a sign of respect and admiration, while white are given to recognize not just innocence, but elegance, even reverence.”

He paused, gesturing to the woman’s face. “And violets are used to symbolize true love, modesty, and faithfulness. The fact that these are the only flowers made of gemstones seems to indicate an unfailing love, an affection that time can’t wither. They didn’t simply kill this woman, Captain, that’s far too simple. They used her as a canvas.”

“For what?”

_For their flirtation?_

No.

“For their _devotion_. I was right, Captain, Geneva isn’t home for them. This is where they came to play. This is—”

He made himself pause, consciously concealing the fascination in his voice.

“This is romantic, but only for them. Look at how they posed her.”

“I don’t recognize the pose.”

“Exactly. It’s not a copy or a reference. It’s not modeled after a Botticelli or Dali or any famous work. It’s simple, but it’s original. They’ve already moved on from simply killing together. They’re composing together.” Spencer bit his lip.

_Because they don’t simply love each other. They’re in love._

Captain Altherr stood suddenly, brushing carpet fibers from her knees. “We need to get back. We need to prepare for our call with Ms. Verger and Dr. Bloom. We need to tell them about this right away. This feels like practice to me, and we need to warn them.”

Spencer could only nod, his eyes still tracing the purple drops of light around the victim’s hollow ocular cavities. “Yes, we do,” he agreed. As he stood to follow her out, his fingers grazed the photo in his pocket, the one he’d taken from the station. The one that captured the woman in the forest green pea coat. He watched for her as he left the library, but if she was there, she remained out of sight.

 _No matter_.

She was involved, somehow, which meant that she was close. It was only a matter of time before he found her.

_If she doesn’t find me first._


	4. Geneva, In the Sunlight

Spencer fidgeted with his pen as Captain Altherr dialed. Her face was pinched into a frown, looking equal parts cross and alarmed.

He understood that his face should have held a similar tension. It was one of those things he had learned over the years—what he should be doing, how he should be adapting. It had gradually gotten easier to slip into the facade of expectation. Receiving hugs, for instance, or knowing when to hold his tongue in moments of tension. 

He frowned, trying to wrap himself in an approximation of the captain’s fear and anxiety. It felt tight and inauthentic, but he wore it all the same. She didn’t seem to respond well to his interest in the case. Best to tread lightly.

There was a pause as their call extended out over the ocean, a series of small clicks telling them to be patient. Spencer bounced his heel on the ground, pulling into his lap the photo capturing the woman in the green pea coat, while Captain Altherr tapped her index finger on her desk, placing the phone in its cradle and turning on the speaker.

The call connected with a soft burst of static.

“Yes?” The voice of Alana Bloom.

“Dr. Bloom. I apologize that our call is earlier than expected. We have news.”

“Is Dr. Reid with you?”

Spencer sat up in his chair, leaning toward the receiver. “Yeah, yes, I’m here.”

“What’s happening? Have you found them?”

Captain Altherr looked expectantly at Spencer, nodding towards him. He cleared his throat, mindful of his tone. “We think we have. There’s been another murder. Time of death was most likely late last night or early this morning, meaning they’re still in Geneva. We’re still waiting on a cause of death and a positive ID, but judging by the elaborate display, it fits what we’d expect from Hannibal and Will.”

There was a brief pause before Alana’s voice echoed through the phone line, tight and clipped. “What does that mean for us?”

Spencer moved the photo from his lap to the desk, watching as the captain’s eyes caught it and her eyebrows arched in an unasked question. _What is that?_

He held up a finger. _Wait._

“I believe you’re safe, at least for the time being,” he began. “What I’m seeing here demonstrates a complete harmony between Hannibal and Will. For all intents and purposes, this seems like a fun outing for them. I don’t believe they’d come out of hiding to start killing again if they didn’t feel completely safe, but they’d need to ensure that their safety holds once they’re back out in the open. Based on the two bodies I’ve seen, they’re killing more as a show of affection for each other rather than as a lead-up to a spree, in which you would be included.”

He winced, knowing immediately that it was an indelicate thing to say. Captain Altherr’s hard stare confirmed it. He cleared his throat again and continued.

“I’ll be able to tell you more once I have more information on this new body, but I don’t believe the threat to you and your family is immediate. It’s not non-existent, mind you, but it’s not on your doorstep, either. We still have our work cut out for us to track them down and discern their motives, but, to me, it seems unlikely that they’re heading back for you yet. They want to enjoy each other.”

“Captain Altherr? Do you agree?”

The captain sighed, casting a glance at Spencer that held an air of apology but lacked an apologetic softness.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Bloom, but I don’t. Dr. Reid said this morning that it seems like Dr. Lecter and Mr. Graham have started using murders as a form of composition. There was no discernable reference to another work of art; it was simply of their own doing. Dr. Reid may think this keeps you safe, but it worries me. I think it indicates that they’re emboldened, perhaps enough to change their motives. None of the organs usually on Lecter’s list were taken from the body. If they feel comfortable enough to kill together, create together, it means they’re practicing. I think you should relocate to another safehouse as soon as you’re able.”

Spencer leaned back in his chair, while a crackle of static that sounded like an apprehensive sigh echoed through the phone line.

“We’ll take that advice, Captain,” Alana said, “out of an abundance of caution. But we still need them found. Dr. Reid, we discussed how Hannibal and Will would defy logic and expectation. What makes you so sure they aren’t about to leave Geneva?”

Biting his lip, Spencer took a moment to organize his thoughts. “From what I’ve read in their files, Hannibal and Will have an intense relationship, to put it mildly. Intense relationships like this usually become destructive in pairs that kill together, but the opposite seems true here. From what I can gather so far, their relationship actually seems to have grown into one of mutual reciprocity and curiosity. Whatever manipulation and competition may have defined the early days on their partnership has long faded by now. It’s not defined by one trying to dominate the other. They don’t fit the profile of your typical killers, Dr. Bloom, they—”

He took a breath. “If anything, they seem more like lovers who kill, rather than killers who love.”

Captain Alterr’s face fell back into that tight frown, but Alana hummed in acknowledgement. “Go on,” she prompted.

“For that reason, and I mean no offence, I’m not inclined to believe you’re a top priority for them. The fact that they didn’t take this victim’s organs just confirms that they aren’t need-driven. They aren’t prioritizing Hannibal’s desire to take organs, but they aren’t adhering to Will’s historical methods of more simplistic killing. They’re experimenting, most likely learning from and about each other after their hiatus. At this stage, Dr. Bloom, it’s not about you or your family. It’s about them, and what they’ve become together.”

Spencer paused, drawing his hand across his mouth.

“I’m not saying we should announce an all-clear or that Captain Altherr’s concerns are unfounded. Quite the opposite. If they do decide to circle back to you, they may do so with an intensity we only see in people driven and encouraged by love. That makes them unpredictable. Frankly, we have nothing to compare them to because there have never been killers like this, not with this level of intensity or intelligence.”

_They’re new. They’re fascinating._

“Psychopaths aren’t supposed to be able to feel love,” Alana added. “Hannibal and Will aren’t crazy, but the sentiment still applies. What makes them unique also adds to how dangerous they are.”

Spencer nodded, and remembering this was a phone call, said, “I agree. We definitely need to keep looking. And that leads me to my second point.”

He tapped the photo, drawing Captain Altherr’s attention. “I was approached by a woman last night in the hotel. She sat down and rather cryptically asked me if I was a hunter or a collector. Going through the Vetsch files this morning, I saw that same woman in the background of a photo of the crime scene. Whoever she is, she appears to have taken an interest in this case. She’s likely involved somehow. Dr. Bloom, do you remember anything about Hannibal or Will having accomplices? Anyone they might have been working with in Italy?”

There was a pause as Alana sorted through her memory. “Hannibal and Will reunited in Italy,” she said finally, tension gripping her voice. “Mason caught them there and had them brought to Muskrat Farm. Hannibal tried to cut Will’s skull open; he was still bloody when they arrived. I don’t know how there could have been time for an accomplice to work—”

The silence was as abrupt as a gunshot, its severity nearly echoing off the walls of the office space.

“Dr. Bloom?” Captain Altherr leaned in toward the phone. “Dr. Bloom, what is it?”

“Bullets,” she replied simply. “Dr. Reid, you have the file from the night Hannibal surrendered?”

“At the hotel,” he answered, closing his eyes to pick through it with his mind’s eye. “Bullets, Dr. Bloom?”

“Mason’s men were slaughtered—stabbed, bludgeoned, torn up or torn open. There were only three exceptions. Mason…”

Spencer finished her thought. “And the two men outside.”

Captain Altherr inhaled sharply, memory clicking into place. “The ones who were shot. Analytics said it must have been a sniper, judging from distance and the lack of footprints in the snow.”

That blue spark of interest peppered itself up Spencer’s spine, making him sit up taller in his chair. “Dr. Bloom, correct me if I’m wrong, but no one was ever questioned for those murders, were they?

“No. Police never found a suspect.”

“Whoever it was must have trailed Hannibal and Will back from Italy. Given that Will had only just arrived, it means they were Hannibal’s accomplice.”

Spencer leaned back in his seat, pinching the bridge of his nose.

_So Hannibal has a protector as well as a lover._

What was the needling lightness in his gut? Anticipation? Tinged with the savory sprig of envy?

The more Spencer dug into this case, the less it adhered to the rules that had so strictly defined his success in his career. The pieces of this puzzle were shapes he hadn’t dared to comprehend, shaded with colors he could never have dreamed on his own. He felt tiny, a mere mortal staring into the thundering flames brought down to earth by Prometheus.

“Nothing is certain,” he began, opening his eyes. “But I’m curious to know more about this accomplice. I’d be interested to find out if the accomplice and the woman who spoke to me in the bar are one in the same.”

Captain Altherr tilted her head to the side, brow furrowed. “How can you track down that information? No one knows anything about the accomplice, and you may not find this woman again in time to help Dr. Bloom and Ms. Verger.”

There was a rattle of movement over the line as Alana shifted. From the sound of it, she was going through papers, already a step ahead of the captain.

“I need to talk to the only person who was in Italy long enough to have met Hannibal’s accomplice.” Spencer sighed, the ghost of a smirk gracing his lips. “I need to interview Bedelia Du Maurier.”

“I’m looking for her current information as we speak,” Alana said. “I’ll have it to you as soon as possible. She assembled quite the security team for herself after her leg was taken. She doesn’t do book tours anymore, and she doesn’t share her whereabouts freely. She seems to have lost the taste for the public eye.” Alana spoke in a tone so sharp Spencer would have found it humorous had the circumstances been different. “I may not get the information to you until this evening, perhaps even tomorrow, depending on how fast our people can locate her.”

For a moment, Spencer debated giving her Garcia’s number. It would be faster that way, and Garcia would appreciate knowing he was alive somewhere, even if he wasn’t the one who reached out directly.

But then she would know what he was doing. Garcia was clever, tenacious. A call from Alana Bloom and Margot Verger would be the first in a spill of dominoes clattering around him. Garcia would see that his own record was cleared, his travel and mental health restrictions lifted, and she would use her magic to track him down. Spencer didn’t want to be found, especially not now, while his mind was alight with the blue spark of Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham.

And not while his fantasy of killing Cat Adams pricked insistently at the edges of his mind.

No. He wouldn’t call, wouldn’t suggest Alana or Margot call, either. This was his. Only his.

Spencer chewed his lip again, nodding at Captain Altherr. “I can help the captain with the newest murder until you’re able to track down Dr. Du Maurier’s information. Hannibal and Will aren’t in a stage to seek you out yet. I’m confident we have time.”

Captain Altherr raised her eyebrows. “I’m pleased Dr. Reid is so confident, but I’d still advise you to move quickly, Dr. Bloom. As you said yourself, Dr. Lecter and Mr. Graham will defy all our expectations. This could all be a ruse as they circle back to your location.”

There was a beat of silence. “I understand,” Alana said, the rustling on her side of the line coming to a stop. “And I appreciate your candor and concern, Captain Altherr. I’ll be in touch with a new round of contact numbers in the morning. Margot and I will look into relocating to another safehouse with Morgan as soon as possible.”

When the call ended, Spencer and Captain Altherr considered each other for a moment. “Are you really so sure Hannibal and Will are still here,” she asked, “Or are you just enjoying this game so much that you wish it were true?”

Spencer’s mouth pressed into a thin line, eyes narrowing. “I’m positive they’re still here,” he replied coolly, reaching over to retrieve the photo of the woman in the pea coat. “And I have a feeling this woman will help us get out ahead of them.”

“If you can find her,” she replied.

“ _When_ I find her. And Bedelia Du Maurier will assist with that.”

“And will she help you find them before they kill someone else?”

Spencer went still, eyes falling to the ground. He hadn’t considered that. After all his years as a profiler, all his time spent trying to save lives, he simply hadn’t considered it. _How had I not considered it?_

He was so caught up in the chase that, in this moment, he had neither thought nor cared about the potential victims out there, the ones unknowingly waiting for the tides of life to ebb while he tracked down Hannibal and Will.

As if to bury his guilt in movement, he cleared his throat and stood. “I’ll move as quickly as I can to prevent any more loss of life. I don’t want to see anyone else get hurt because of them.”

She regarded him carefully, picking him apart piece by piece. He wondered how quickly Margot would have seen through him, if she had been there.

“We should get some work done,” he said, voice as tense as his shoulders. “And see if the coroner has any new information for us. I’d like to know more about this murder before I move on to interview Dr. Du Maurier.”

Captain Altherr nodded. “As would I. I’ll place some calls, see what our progress is. I’ll call you when I hear something.”

When Spencer found his way outside, the cold edge of autumn wind bracing against his cheeks, he caught himself gazing idly up and down the street. A throng of people moved about during their mid-day breaks, running errands, grabbing lunch, filling the streets with the clatter of society that he found both odd and comforting. The anonymity soothed him. He was a rock, a featureless jut of stone with the waves of humanity crashing around him, indifferent to his presence above their parting for him.

He remembered, in his youth, wanting to be noticed. Wanting someone to spot him in the churning sea, to reach their hand down into the depths, and pluck him up from the undertow of his fellow man. He’d wanted to make a difference, without being different. At least, no more than he already was.

But that was a long time ago, before he joined the BAU, even before he’d graduated high school. He liked to think he’d built up an immunity to want, shaped from exposure to his mother’s schizophrenia and his classmates’ cruelty. _Want_ was an extraneous emotion, an appendix for the soul. It led to disappointment, or worse, to devastation when that low-burning lantern of hope was foolish enough to light.

He’d _wanted_ to be with Maeve. He’d _wanted_ to catch Cat. Wanting was the surest way to self-destruction.

Here, lost among the afternoon crowds, a blip of stillness in a surging sea, just for a moment, he felt at ease. Anonymous. Unseen.

The moment disappeared with a glint.

It was the glimmer of the afternoon sun. For just an instant, it found a small tatter in the clouds and peeked through, shining down on the streets below. As Spencer raised his head to determine which way to wander, he caught it, just out of the corner of his eye: the flash of forest green and the flare of sunlight off gunmetal.

He didn’t think. Merely reacted. He dropped his shoulders low, widening is stance. His hands snapped to his hip, where his gun used to rest. This time, however, his hands slipped away empty, his heart thundering in his ears.

On one of the buildings off to his left. Not the tallest by any means. But close. He recognized the unmistakable spark of light off a rifle.

By the time his eyes landed on the building, the rifle, and its owner, were gone, likely dropped just below the lip of the rooftop outside his range of vision. He glanced down toward the door at street level as he pushed his way across the street: a clothing store. He didn’t have a badge, didn’t have a weapon. Alana Bloom’s and Margot Verger’s reach extended much farther than he’d originally anticipated, but he doubted it would grant him rooftop access to a retail shop when he had neither authority nor a badge.

Still, if the sniper was on the roof, they may be looking for a way down.

He jogged the rest of the way across the street and wound his way into the building behind a small group of students. He didn’t bother pretending to look around, instead cutting a direct path towards the staircase at the back of the store, leading to the second floor. He took a steadying breath, eyes sweeping from left to right, watching for a flash of forest green.

Shoppers pushed past him. Employees eyed him warily. He spotted a door, painted the same off-white as the walls, with a small sign designating it for employees only. He spun in a futile circle for a moment, making eye contact with a cashier who looked too young to know any of the questions he needed to ask. The younger man tried to avert his eyes as Spencer approached, to no avail.

Spencer pressed his fingertips against the glass countertop. “Can you tell me if your store has rooftop access?”

The young man’s mouth hung open as he seemed to debate whether or not to answer. Spencer leaned in, lowering his voice. “I saw someone up on the roof. I think they might have a weapon. Maybe your manager can check it out?”

The clerk nodded, stammering out an agreement before rushing around the register and through white door. Spencer waited, fingers tapping the counter, eyes restlessly flicking back and forth. She wasn’t in the store, at least not where he could spot her. It was unlikely she’d made it back down to the first floor. She should still be on the roof.

The young man came back with his manager, a man a closer to Spencer’s age who carried a definitive concern in his eyes, balancing the anxious wideness in the cashier’s own. While the cashier tucked himself back at his station, the manager took Spencer aside. “You think you saw someone on our roof?”

Spencer nodded, eyes darting toward the door, watching for it to open. “I know I did. Someone’s up there, and I think they have a gun. I haven’t seen them come down; is there anyway to get up there?”

“I need to go next door. Our building was converted from apartments a few years ago. We don’t have access to our roof; our neighbors do.”

Spencer felt the wind knock out of him. Without thinking to respond, he whirled and rushed across the floor, crashing down the stairs and back out into the sun-spattered afternoon. He spun, eyes trained for that particular shade of green.

_There!_

Up ahead, just rounding the corner at a cross street, black hair tied at the nape of her neck, a long, black case slung over one arm.

Spencer launched into a run, dodging the surge of pedestrians in his way. His breath exploded around him in bright white clouds of steam. He heard only the slap of his feet on the ground and the rush of blood in his ears.

He didn’t slow as he approached the corner where she’d turned. He overshot the intersection in a wide arc, nearly leaving the sidewalk and skidding into the street. Righting himself, he slowed to a jog, watching, trying to spot her.

Nothing. No flash of green. No long, black case. She was gone.

Cursing under his breath, Spencer strove forward, ready, alert. He scanned the crevices between buildings for any signs of life, watched for her as he passed the glass storefronts. She’d disappeared. Again.

He pulled himself out of the current of pedestrians, tucking himself against a brick wall joining two stores. He watched for several minutes more, but it was no use. There was nothing left for him to do but go back the way he’d come and wait for Captain Altherr’s call.

_I should tell Altherr what I saw._

He bit his lip, considering it.

_The woman had a gun. She could have killed me. If she’s really the accomplice, she could be be a threat to Altherr, to Alana and Margot._

But there was a stillness in his gut that told him Altherr was in no danger. Nor were Alana and Margot, not from this woman. It was Hannibal who made the threat against Alana’s life. If this woman truly was Hannibal’s accomplice from Italy, surely she would know better than to take something that belonged to Hannibal.

_And if she’s not the accomplice? If she’s just a random woman wandering around Geneva, sneaking up onto rooftops with a rifle?_

That stillness didn’t budge. His hunch had taken hold, and it assured him she wasn’t an immediate threat. Whoever she was, he wanted to understand her story. Wanted to see how her narrative was stitched in with Hannibal’s and Will’s. He wanted to _see._


	5. Paris, École Normale Supérieure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Bedelia so much. Our beloved ice queen can go toe-to-toe with our dear Dr. Reid any day. Thank you to everyone reading along so far! This has turned into a slow burn, but it's been a joy to write, and I do hope you're enjoying the journey.

* * *

 

Spencer dreamed of poison. He dreamed the dark bruise of belladonna, the cold pallor of oleander, the livid sunburst of ragwort. He saw it swirl together in a cacophony of color, twisting, morphing, _breathing_. The belladonna contracted in a heartbeat, the ragwort and oleander shifting as if swollen with a fresh gush of blood.

He dreamed of a body, pruned with surgical precision, so its vines spat rainwater where veins once grew.

A yawning ribcage, pried open like the gates of heaven at the hands of the damned.

Arms splayed, not in crucifixion, but as latticework, granting purchase to black, scaled vines, their emerald sheen glinting in small shatters of light.

And a face. _Her_ face. Cat’s face was finally still. Her cruel, laughing eyes were gone, replaced with glittering crystal flowers: bloodroot. Her mouth, the mouth that spat so many lies and so much pain, hung slack, a violet trail of wolfsbane lolling out, rooted where her tongue used to be.

Silent at last. The venom drained out of her, transubstantiated into a torrent of flora.

All at once, the flowers surged. Their movements tensed, bursting into fevered motion. The belladonna convulsed. The bloodroot twisted, sending their cruel spray of light against Cat’s cheeks in an eerie imitation of expression. The wolfsbane trembled, its delicate petals shaking nearly off their stem. They trembled, then they rioted. The hush of their movement growing louder, louder, until the petals splayed and Cat’s laughter trilled from each open bulb. Her voice magnified, pitching higher and higher into a shriek. A howl of laughter, screaming for him over and over and over.

_Spencie! SPENCIE!_

Spencer shot up in his seat, a strangled gasp catching in his throat. The open files in his lap launched into a scatter of paper. He spun his head, trying to see where he was, who he was with.

_The train. I’m on the train. She’s not here._

His heart triphammering in his chest, he scrubbed his hands over his face, leaning back to stare through his fingers at the ceiling of the train car. The rush of the tracks beneath him dulled the labored sound of his own panicked breathing. He didn’t dare shut his eyes. Not yet. Not with the afterimage of laughing, poisonous flowers still bursting against his eyelids.

He’d had nightmares about Cat before, but never like that. Never so decorated in their horror. Tilting his chin to look at the mess on the floor, he sighed, irritated and embarrassed.

“Damn it."

He’d been reviewing two files when he’d fallen asleep. The first was one of Hannibal’s murders: a city councilman, cut open, organs taken and replaced with an array of toxic flowers. Through the carnage, it was captivating, though perhaps more so on paper than in his head, Spencer had to admit. The file was heavy with photos and notes, observations from two agents, Price and Zeller, particularly helpful in aiding his full understanding of the condition and significance of the body.

The second was the much lighter, newer file on Emma Surbeck, the woman displayed in the Bibliothèque de Genève. He’d brought with him photos of the crime scene and the preliminary notes from Captain Altherr and the coroner, curious to compare this case to Hannibal’s former tableau. Stripping the flesh from the arms was new, as was the taking of the eyes and replacing them with gemstone violets, but Hannibal had used flowers before. It struck Spencer as odd that, after such a long and careful history of never repeating his methods, Hannibal would choose this moment to echo a previous design.

_Unless it was Will, or perhaps a joint decision. But why? They’re clearly smart and capable enough to change their methods to avoid detection. Was this an intentional callback, or are they just following their whims?_

And on the tail of that thought came another: _Why Emma Surbeck? So far, there’s no record of a criminal history, no inkling of violence in her past. How did her path cross with Hannibal’s and Will’s? Why did they mutilate her arms?_

He pondered quietly to himself as he picked the papers off the floor, carefully sorting the two cases back into their own folders. Once photos and notes alike were tucked back their original order, Spencer eased back into his seat and forced himself to take three long breaths, his heart rate slowed by contemplation and organization.

He’d been thinking about Cat before he’d nodded off, letting his mind wander. He’d been wondering how a visitor could go about bringing poison into a prison, how to get it past the guards. He’d sunk into a doze as he realized all he really needed, if he was clever, was the right bouquet of flowers.

Finally rubbing his eyes, Spencer tucked the files away into his bag and let his attention wander to the French skyline rushing past his window. The white eyelet of the sun had yet to break through the clouds. He would arrive in Paris in a haze.

Spencer was roughly four hours outside of Geneva, granted a brief leave from his investigation. Bedelia Du Maurier had arranged to visit the École Normale Supérieure in Paris to give a series of lectures on abnormal psychology to PhD candidates. With a little patience and a great deal of luck, her schedule had brought her into his orbit.

Time felt jagged. It had only been a week since Surbeck was found, and since Spencer’s futile chase after the woman in the green pea coat, but it felt much longer. He hadn’t had long to prepare for his meeting with Bedelia, and any time spent away from his notes was allocated to Captain Altherr, working on the Vetsch and Surbeck murders. 

Hannibal and Will hadn’t killed again, not yet. Spencer suspected they were watching, waiting to see how their return to the stage was received. He knew that, above all, they would be protecting each other now. They wouldn’t continue to kill if it put them in danger.

That gave him time to interview Bedelia. He dug into his bag to retrieve his notes on her, the last remnants of his nightmare eclipsed by the tasks ahead of him.

Jack Crawford’s accounts painted her in a cold and unflinching light. He referred to her as calculating, meticulous in her delivery. When making his statement about finding Bedelia in her apartment in Florence, Jack recalled that her eyes were “lit with a brightness that comes from knowledge, not a cocktail of hallucinogens.”

Spencer didn’t imagine that having her leg removed had made her any more forthcoming. She’d stopped her book tours and no longer gave lectures about her time in Florence. She still taught, though she had all but disappeared from the public eye, maintaining a carefully curated and limited set of appearances from which she never strayed. It seemed the trauma of losing her limb had made her quite reclusive. Spencer thought back on his time under Tobias Hankel’s care and suppressed a shiver—he could sympathize with the desire to disappear.  

Still, after how brazenly she had toured with her story while Hannibal was in prison, Spencer did find it odd that that she was only in hiding now, after her leg was removed and Hannibal and Will were presumed dead. He flipped through his notes: her official statement to the police was that Hannibal and Will had taken her leg before they went to confront Dolarhyde on the cliffs.

_Interesting._

Spencer understood that Bedelia was very much a woman in control of her narrative. He needed to be ready. Any information he got from her would be given only if she wanted to give it, though he was still unsure how to back her into that particular corner. Any corner, really. For all the information he had on her personality, he saw little that directed him towards a particular pressure point her could use. But he needed to learn more about Hannibal’s accomplice, and Bedelia was the only lead he had. He wouldn’t leave without information. He couldn’t.

Resting his head against the window, Spencer turned the details he knew so far over and over in his mind, blue sparks illuminating his theories. He hoped Bedelia would offer concrete gems of knowledge, rather than spinning more web for him to weave into some semblance of a tale. He hoped, but he fully expected he’d be weaving.

* * *

 

“The nature of man is not conflicted. There is no inner war raging within each of us, no cosmic chess game being played for our very souls. There is no inherent goodness or evil; there is only aesthetic. Only what we choose to present to the world. There is no compass inside you swinging from west to east; every act of cruelty, as every act of compassion, is determined by the performance you wish to give in a specific moment of time. Cruelty and compassion are merely set design on the greater stage of our performative selves. Our impulses, both acted upon and ignored, reveal the tapestry of our true personalities. But we live to hide these tapestries, convinced that the ethics of the world outside of us determines how we are wrong. We are not wrong. We must simply adapt to how we are perceived, and evolve to make our ethical skins blend in with the morality surrounding us.”

Bedelia Du Maurier paused, holding her audience in a swell of silence. She cast her eyes over them, turning ever so slightly so the lights of the small lecture stage reflected off the titanium of her prosthetic. Spencer wondered vaguely if she’d positioned herself there on purpose for precisely that effect.

Her lecture had ended roughly ten minutes prior. She remained standing, fielding questions from the crowd pertaining to psychology, ethics, and, at this moment, the aesthetics of good and evil. Her voice was low and cool, her cadence deliberate, sharp as a scalpel. Students and professors alike sat up in their seats, enraptured.

Spencer pressed his fingers to his lips, listening from outside the veil of enchantment. Thinking over the many skins she must have worn—for her listeners, for the police, for Hannibal himself—Spencer understood that when it came to the game of perception, Bedelia was exceptionally skilled.

He glanced at her leg. _But perhaps only second best. Or third_

Still, she was practiced enough to keep her persona in place through the rest of the questions. Spencer had to wonder if she ever really let it falter.

He would find out.

Once the Q&A had ended and the professors in the room thanked Bedelia for her time, Spencer stood and made a slow approach toward the front of the room. He stopped several feet away, watching as Bedelia tucked her materials back into her bag. She moved effortlessly on her high heels, something that proved difficult for some even with both of their legs unaltered. Spencer suspected she had both incredible core strength and a very good physical therapist, though he kept both thoughts to himself.

She turned her head slowly to look at him, her face as calm and unmoving as stone. “I won’t be answering any more questions today.”

He refused to shiver, but he felt a touch of frost billow down his spine all the same.

“Dr. Du Maurier, I’m Dr. Spencer Reid. I’m here at the request of Alana Bloom and Margot Verger.”

Her face remained impassive, though there was a flicker of light in her eyes. Fear? Interest?

_Annoyance._

“I have nothing to share with Dr. Bloom or Ms. Verger."

“It’s more about what we can share with you,” he said, titling his head to the side. “We have confirmation that Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham are alive.”

He watched Bedelia carefully. She straightened her already poised posture, a simple flexing of the shoulder blades. She held him in an unwavering stare, as if she had been carved from marble. There was no quiver of her lips, no widening of her eyes. Her pupils were steady, flat discs.

He offered her a polite smile. “Though I suspect you’ve known that for some time already.”

She arched an eyebrow and appraised him slowly, a twist of a scowl appearing on her face. “If you’ve come to make accusations, I would advise you to speak with either the Baltimore police or my lawyer. This matter has long been put to rest.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary, Dr. Du Maurier. I’m not investigating you. As I said, I’m here because Hannibal and Will are alive. Two bodies have been found in Geneva, both elaborately staged, definitely fitting with their patterns. Dr. Bloom and Ms. Verger are, understandably, concerned for their safety. I need to find Hannibal and Will, Doctor, and I need your help. You had unique, unfettered access to them. You can help me figure out what they’ll do next.”

In a fluid movement, Bedelia turned and approached, her gait practiced and steady, the sound of her heels clicking delicately against the floor. “Whatever you think you know about Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham,” she said with an edge of warning, “I can assure you that you are not as educated as you need to be in order to have this conversation.”

Spencer noted the challenge. He straightened his own posture before dropping his voice to match her own. “I’m here to be educated. Tell me about Florence.”

Spencer saw the light in her eyes shift, a faint darkening in the irises as she tipped her chin slightly. He thought back to Jack Crawford’s notes, about her spark of coherent knowledge, and in that moment he understood that she was preparing the skin she needed to wear for him.

_To deceive me? Or to enlighten me?_

She said, “I no longer discuss my time as Lydia Fell.”

Spencer nodded. “That’s probably a wise decision. I can’t imagine Hannibal was too pleased with some of the things you said about him—or about Will. That’s why you stopped touring and commenting on your book, right? They took your leg after they killed Dolarhyde, not before, and you don’t want them coming back any more than my employers do. How did you convince them to let you live?”

Her eyes narrowed then, her face seeming to tighten into a frown, though the expression itself was so subtle he barely saw it form. She blinked, slowly, and he was sure he was witnessing a debate over how much of her disguise to let slip.

“There is no convincing the two of them,” she admitted. “They had made up their minds not to kill me before they ever arrived in my home.”

“Do you expect that magnanimity to last now that they’re active again? Do you think you’ve led a quiet enough life that they won’t come back for you? It didn’t take Dr. Bloom or Ms. Verger long to find you, even with your security precautions in place. I was still able to get this close to you without any interference. How close will Hannibal and Will get before you see them coming?”

Bedelia’s frown loosened, floating into a tight-lipped smile. “They’ve no reason to come back for me, Dr. Reid. I am not the one meddling in their affairs.”

Spencer tried to cover his flash of annoyance with a chuckle, but it felt forced, inorganic. He cleared his throat, tried again.

“You crossed Hannibal once, yet you walked away with your life. I wouldn’t take that bet again, and I don’t blame you for not wanting to divulge any information that would threaten your truce.”

He reached into his bag, retrieving his photo from the Vetsch crime scene and turning it to show Bedelia. “So lead me to her. There was a woman in Geneva, tall, slender build, I believe she’s Japanese. She was photographed here, leaving the first scene Hannibal and Will left for us. She approached me in my hotel, and I spotted her on a rooftop in the city, pointing a rifle at me. I have a feeling she worked with Hannibal in Florence. Help me find her, so I can find them.”

Bedelia stared in silence, the deliberate stall sending prickles of irritation up Spencer’s neck. “It’s difficult to say. This photograph doesn’t show her face.”

“Did you ever meet anyone in Italy matching her description?”

She raised her eyebrows and shrugged.

 _She’s clearly chosen to be perceived as difficult and unwilling to help_ , he thought.

“Dr. Du Maurier, whatever hibernation they’ve been in, it’s over now. Everything they did before this was done during a courtship of smoke and shadows. The courtship is over. They’re together now, completely. Despite my lack of education, as you put it, I know this: whatever limitations you think Hannibal and Will had three years ago are gone. You may think they exist within the set of boundaries you remember, but I promise you, they’ve evolved. The best predators always do.”

Spencer recognized the spark in her eyes at once: that flicker of knowledge. Of conviction. Her eyes trailed his face, running over his forehead, down his nose, evaluating his mouth and chin. She was studying him, he realized. Sizing him up.

And with a chill, he thought, _She’s trying to figure out if I’m capable of catching them. She’s looking for something in me._

Bedelia tilted her head to the side, just slightly, so her perfect trail of curls fell across her shoulder. “And here you are, a self-purported expert of their evolution. Why do you want to find them so intensely, Dr. Reid? Is it only because you’re on the payroll of Dr. Bloom and Ms. Verger? Or do you find yourself tilting your ear upwards toward the sound of wolves howling your name?”

He felt his face fall before he could stop it; a vulnerability he hadn’t wanted to expose. She smiled in response, baring the briefest flash of teeth.

“I know the marks of obsession, Dr. Reid. I spent enough time caught in their storm to read them fluently. Did you truly come all this way to ask me about Hannibal’s accomplice?” She leaned in close, her voice drifting into a whisper. “Or do you want to know what it was like? Being lost in the forest of Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham?”

When he swallowed, there was an audible click. “I don’t… That’s not why…” He stammered, blinking furiously as he felt his cheeks flush. “You were never lost,” he accused feebly. “You walked in of your own volition.”

She pulled back, face serene. “And what are you doing, if not standing at the mouth of an overgrown path, inching your way forward?”

She paused, allowing her words to crash around him, through him. “Whatever brought you here, Dr. Reid, I advise you to make peace with it before you find them. And if you continue your search, you _will_ find them, eventually. Be sure you have the door secured before you start calling the wolves out from the forest. Hannibal may fill your head with howling, but make no mistake, it will be Will Graham who sniffs out any weakness in your defense.”

Spencer’s mouth was dry, his tongue suddenly unwieldy in his mouth. He scowled, unable to respond, unsure of how to defend himself.

Bedelia understood his silence, and pressed on.

“If you insist on moving forward, I cannot stop you. I cannot tell you if the woman you’re looking for is Hannibal’s current accomplice. What I can tell you is this: Hannibal had many relationships before Will Graham where he learned how to suggest certain outcomes without the need for something as gauche as coercion. Hannibal deals in games of desire, not of force. Just because Will became his favorite does not mean Will is his first.”

She tapped the photo with a perfectly manicured nail. “Suppose I did meet a woman in Florence matching this description. I was already drugged at the time, so my recollections from that period are hazy, you understand.”

Spencer held his agitated sigh in his chest. He understood that it was the skin she wore to keep herself free, not from Hannibal, but from the police. Scratching at it would do him no good.

“If I did meet that woman,” Bedelia continued, “I could tell you that she would have been one of Hannibal’s earliest projects. If I had spoken to her, I would have understood that she walked away from Hannibal with a cohesive sense of self, though she may have had regrets about the path of her evolution. But considering Hannibal’s history, walking away at all is an accomplishment, let alone with a sense of self outside of him.”

She paused, remembering. “If I had met her, I could also tell you that, had she wanted to shoot you in Geneva, you would be dead.”

“What’s her name, Bedelia? How do I find her?”

Turning to gather up her things, Bedelia shook her head gently. “She decides when she is found. She’s very much like Hannibal in that way. If you would like to invite her out into the open, you’ll merely need to remain on Hannibal’s trail. She’s curiously protective of him. If you’ve seen her, I suspect Hannibal and Will are not far off.”

Pocketing the photo, Spencer tried a final time. “I need a name. Please.”

She regarded him carefully, as if giving him a moment to back away and decline, to turn from the path and abandon the investigation forever. When he let the silence stretch, she sighed. “Chiyoh.”

“Chiyoh.” Adjusting his bag on his shoulder, he took an unsteady breath, the tension knotting between his shoulders. The game was far from over.

“A final word of warning before you resume your search, Dr. Reid. There is no worse place for you to position yourself than between Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham. Your interest in them is dangerous. If you have any say in this matter, I recommend you stop your hunt before you find yourself at their table. As the guest of honor, or as the entree. Not all of us can survive being both.”

He regarded her for a long moment, surprised to realize she’d dropped her taunt in favor of sincerity. “I’m not trying to come between them,” he defended. “I’m trying to get ahead of them.”

Her smile came in the form of sharp upturning of one corner of her mouth, serene and severe all at once. It didn’t reach her eyes. An uncomfortable shiver vibrated along his spine.

“To the hunt, then,” she said. “And all its consequences.”


	6. Paris, The Hotel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, lovelies! So glad to have you back for this next installment. As a heads-up, April and May get pretty busy in my non-writing life (booo, I know). If I go quiet for a bit, that's why. Rest assured, I am here and hard at work on the next chapter so hopefully it won't be long before it's posted. (That being said, please do check out my note at the bottom of the page regarding the next chapter.) Now, where were we...

* * *

 

Spencer jerked awake to the sharp trill of his phone. Slapping around on the nightstand, he pulled the device toward him, wincing at the bright screen.

 _Penelope Garcia  
_ _Mobile_

He fumbled. Trying to turn down the volume, his movements dulled by sleep, he dropped the phone and dragged his palm across the screen in the process.

“Reid? Boy Wonder, you there?”

_Damn._

He closed his eyes, holding his breath.

 _I need to disconnect,_ he warned himself. _I can’t talk to her._

“Spencer? Are you there? Can you hear me? Reid, if you can hear me, I really need you to speak up, because I haven’t heard from you in weeks and this radio silence is killing me, and I’m really freaking out—”

“I’m here.” An admission dredged up through reluctance and the gravel of dark and restless dreams.

“Reid!” Her relief was palpable, painful. Her warmth hurt, sending a thudding ache through his chest.

“Boy Genius, I’m so happy to hear your voice! I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for ages. I almost put an alert out on your credit cards! Almost, I promise.” She laughed, a bright flash bursting around him. It faded quickly when she realized he wasn’t laughing along.

“How are you, Reid? Are you taking care of yourself?”

“I’m tired, Garcia.” His voice was tight, flat. “I was sleeping.”

“Oh. I … I’m sorry I woke you.”

He could hear her moving in the background, though he couldn’t detect the rhythmic clatter of her typing. She must have been at home.

_It lessens the chance that she’s tracing the call, though it’s not completely out of the question._

He let the silence stretch for a moment, unsure of what to say. She seemed equally uncertain. He wondered if she could sense his distance, if it chilled her the way it soothed him.

“So … what are you up to? Everyone’s asking about you.”

He bristled. “What are they asking?”

“If you’re ok, where you’ve been. If you’re coming back. You know, normal things for your friends to ask.” Another chuckle.

He refused to match it. Instead, he glanced over at the clock. Three in the morning in Paris. That put her at nine at night in DC.

“You’re calling a little on the late side, aren’t you?”

“Maybe. I just got in from a shift with my volunteer group. I just—” Her brief sigh wasn’t enough to hide the waver in her voice. “It’s been a tough couple of cases, and I needed to try to reach you before I fell asleep. It’s been horrible not being able to talk to you. We — I understand that you need the break, but it would be great to see you. Maybe we could get together for a movie night or just grab some dinner. You, me, the team.”

“I can’t.”

Another gap of silence.

“You can’t, or you won’t?” Her voice was still cheerful, but it had taken on a gentle, sad edge. Garcia’s temperament was like spring sunshine itself, soft and inviting. But springtime sun could still burn, and it was that gentle flare he heard now as she balanced on the edge of offence and dejection. He could hear it in the way she enunciated, in her carefully docile tone.

 _She wants to be understanding, but doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know how to help me_.

He scrubbed his palm over his face.

_Garcia can’t help me._

Opening his eyes to stare at the ceiling, Spencer’s mind skittered back to Bedelia. Of how easily she’d seen through him, how effortlessly she’d called him out on his growing obsession. His startle of exposure; on its heels, the cold, naked thrill of being seen.

He thought of what she’d said about Hannibal, how his were games of desire, not coercion.

_Bedelia saw me the way Hannibal saw her. All my pieces, and how they could be changed to influence the whole of me._

In that moment, Spencer’s mind did what it did best: it found the pattern. He identified a cluster of knowledge, like so many dots on the periphery of his imagination, forming a shape he wasn’t familiar with but which floated like a fishing lure at the edge of his awareness. He allowed himself to be drawn in.

Bedelia had survived by slipping in and out of skins necessary to her disguise. He’d seen it in her as she’d seen it in Hannibal. Spencer knew, in a sudden blue burst of clarity, that he would need to do the same.

_Maybe I can convince Garcia to look the other way._

He chewed his lip.

“I can’t,” he said, bending his voice, pitching his tone higher. He unstitched his frown, moulding himself to match the false evenness in his voice. “Garcia, I’m actually in California.”

He pulled the phone away from his ear as she drew in a breath over the line, a small hiss of delight crackling around him.

“You’re in _California_? What on earth are you doing there? Wait, what time is it? You’re asleep already?”

He forced a chuckle that felt dry in his mouth but sounded convincing enough. “Yeah … California. It’s six o’clock at night. I guess I fell asleep when I got back to my hotel. I’ve been sleeping a lot lately, not really eating. I just feel detached.”

Truth woven through his lie.

She hummed, a low, sympathetic sound. “I don’t mean to overstep, and this is coming only from a place of love and over-protectiveness, but those sound an awful lot like signs of depression.”

This time his laugh, no more than a soft exhale through his nose, was genuine, though he couldn’t hide the tinge of sorrow carried with it. “You’re not wrong.”

She was silent for a moment, selecting her words with careful precision. “I know you know all the things, but given how chaotic everything was before you left, I just want to be sure you’re taking care of yourself. Are you seeing anyone? A therapist, I mean?”

Hannibal and Will flickered to the top of his mind. The Vetsch and Surbeck files, no more than a stack of shadows, drew his eye from their place on the desk across from the bed. “I’m trying to find the right therapist. And I am working through things, though my process may be a little unorthodox.”

“Hey, unorthodox doesn’t mean ineffective. That’s a good start. How about physical care? You’re eating at least a couple times a day, keeping yourself hydrated, organized enough to function day-to-day? I don’t want to push you, but I need to know if my resident genius is staying afloat. Say the word and I’m on a plane. I’ll read with you, play chess with you. We don’t need to talk or anything if you don’t want. We can sit, walk, whatever you need.”

As angry as Spencer had been, as he still was, he couldn’t refute Garcia’s care for him. Something dark had taken root in him, but where Garcia was, there were still streaks of love to be found, green, pink, and bright. She loved on every axis, in depth and intensity and duration. She pressed against the glass wall of his heart, sending cracks all through him. If anyone in this wretched world would move sea and mountain for him, it was Garcia.

_That’s why she can’t help me. She’d see this, what’s inside me, and she’d try to pull me away from it. She’d be horrified by it._

Spencer rubbed his eyes and sighed, his donned skin faltering. “I’m functioning. I just need some perspective. I’ve been so angry lately, really tired and confused, and I just … I need time to come to terms with what I’m feeling. Does that make sense?”

He heard her shift. He saw her in his mind’s eye leaning back in her chair, a soft look of sympathy on her face.

“My sweet boy, of course it does.” The springtime light filtered back into her voice. “That’s only natural. It makes total sense that you need time to process what happened. Being sent to prison is traumatic enough, but to be an innocent man behind bars? And then everything with Cat …”

He could almost feel her shiver.

“I understand why you need space. I just wish you’d told me you were going. I was really worried, ya know?”

“I know. I’m sorry I made you worry, Garcia. I just feel like I need to be off the radar for a while? I need to come to terms with what happened, make peace with the changes I see in myself.”

_Or lean over and see how far down the darkness goes._

“I get it. I’m really glad you told me, Reid. I’m always here. I can listen, I can help find you a good support group out there if that’s an avenue you want to explore. You name it, I’ve got your back.”

He was silent a moment, pulling himself back into the skin he needed to wear for her. The one that would protect him from her love. His tongue darted to the corner of his mouth, wetting his lower lip. “Actually, there is something. I don’t know if you know the whole timeline, but I, uh,  didn’t resign, until a few days after I was released. When the Bureau thought I was coming back, they put some travel restrictions and mandatory psych evals in place so they could keep an eye on me. Once I resigned, those should have been lifted, but … well, just in case they’re dragging their feet with the hope that I’ll come back, can you just not make it too widely known that I left DC?”

He paused, feeling a shift in his gut that felt like nervousness. Like anticipation.

Like a slow, jittery crawl toward excitement.

“I think this time away will really help,” he continued. “And I think I could sleep easier knowing you’re looking out for me.” He let himself laugh, allowing his face to pull into a smile. “At least until you call to wake me up.”

She laughed with him, and it was easy, weightless. No hesitation, no questioning tone. Just acceptance.

“Consider it done, my treasure. I’ll let the team know you’re okay, but I won’t rat you out about leaving DC. You can trust me.”

She paused, a hopeful tension in her silence. “You do know you can trust me, right, Reid? I know your faith in humanity has to be pretty much obliterated right now, but I’ve got your back. We all do.”

His smile held, though he felt a thread of guilt tug in his stomach. “I know you do, Garcia.”

“Can I still check in on you? Not every day or anything, I’ll give you your space. Just little blips, so I know you’re okay?”

“I would like that. But hey, you called because you’ve had a rough couple of cases, right? Tell me what’s been going on.”

He listened as she gave him an overview of her work, her recent fears and turmoils. He listened as he would have before Geneva, before Hannibal and Will. Before Cat Adams. He listened as a friend would, as he _had_ in what felt like another life. There was a flare of hatred in him, though he couldn’t be sure if it was aimed at Cat or at himself. The line wasn’t as clear as it used to be.

When they hung up, Spencer’s eyes drifted shut, his face going slack. It had been more work than he’d anticipated. He had never been gifted at navigating social interactions. Faking them entirely was draining.

_But effective. She knows just enough to keep her from looking for me._

He opened his eyes again. Is this how Hannibal had done it? Is this how he’d avoided detection for so long?

_And Will learned to do it, too. Bedelia can do it, but even she couldn’t surpass Hannibal and Will. What made them so good at it? Will’s empathy? What about Hannibal?_

But he was a novice, he admitted. Given time—given practice—perhaps he wouldn’t need to lie at all. Perhaps, in time, he could navigate the halls of untruth with merely the twin lights of omission and semantics.

 _Or at least learn how to shed and don a skin as effectively as Bedelia Du Maurier does_ , he thought. Her warning still shaded his mind, filtering down into his thoughts like sunlight through murky waters. _“_ _There is no worse place for you to position yourself than between Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham. Your interest in them is dangerous.”_

_Was she really trying to warn me, or was she just playing games?_

He wanted to believe the latter, but when she dragged the knowledge of his obsession into the light, he’d had the distinct feeling that she let her skin drop. He’d seen, if not _the_ truth of her, than enough of an approximation that he’d believed her. Perhaps she was genuinely trying to save him.

 _From what? From losing a limb?_ He almost scoffed. But on the tail of his derision crept the truth of it, so quiet and still that its presence in his mind surprised him:

_From doing what she did in Florence. Not from losing myself, but from willfully throwing myself into the open jaws of wise and patient beasts. Because once the beasts have me, I won’t be in control anymore._

He tugged his fingers through his hair.

_How much control do I have now?_

He was startled from his thoughts by a low rustling sound cutting through the silence. He jerked upright, looking toward the door.

Even in the dark, he saw the envelope slide in. Small, white against the navy carpet, though it was marred by a dark shape in the center.

Scrambling to his feet, Spencer crossed the room in three short strides, leaning down to retrieve the envelope. On one side was a wax seal embossed with a stag’s head, its antlers sloping upwards into sharp points. He flipped the envelope in his hands. On its face, inscribed in elegant, curled calligraphy, was his name.

_Dr. Spencer Reid_

He threw open the door, squinting into the hall, turning to his right just as a flash of forest green vanished into the stairwell.

She was there. Chiyoh.

He launched after her, crashing into the stairwell moments behind.

He could hear her, though just barely. She moved efficiently, with the caution and gait of a woman used to hunting on dry brush and over the crunch of frost. She was running, heading for the ground level.

His descent was neither quiet nor graceful. He clambered after her, bare feet slapping the floor. She was quick, focused, prepared. He was none of those things. But he was desperate. Desperate to speak to her, to learn from her.

He stopped, nearly pitching forward and losing his balance. “Chiyoh! Wait!”

The flutter of her footsteps halted, her surprise heavy in the silence.

“I’m not a hunter or a collector.” He moved slowly, balanced on the balls of his feet. “But I’m not a tourist, either.”

He controlled his breathing, straining to listen.

“Then what are you?” Her voice was soft and low. But she was there. She was real. And she was close.

“I’m here to bear witness. I was sent as a collector. I was brought here to gather information, to see where they are and what they’re doing. They’re in Geneva, aren’t they? They’re measuring their return. They wanted to see what would happen when they started killing again.”

Forward still, and yet she remained out of sight.

_She must be moving._

“I’m not here to deliver any sort of justice. I just need to speak with them. My involvement started with them in the wild and it can end the same way. I don’t want their hides or their freedom; just information. Once I have that, I can leave, and you won’t ever have to see me again. Hannibal and Will won’t ever need to know I was here.”

He was approaching the bottom of the staircase, and still nothing. He was beginning to wonder if he’d missed her, if she’d gotten behind him somehow, when her voice drifted up to meet him.

“They already know.”

Blue sparks of light erupted in his mind, a storm of azure fireflies. He was only a flight up, so close to the exit. He paused. “Why are you protecting them?”

There was a terrible moment of silence, so heavy that Spencer was sure she’d left him. Finally, she said, “There are some beasts that thrive in captivity. Others die when they’re caged. Then there are beasts that live somewhere else, somewhere beyond this plane, that will survive whether they face a barred door or the horizon. These are the ones you must watch closely. Take your eyes off them and they’ll have you cornered, no matter where they are.”

He took another step. “Are you cornered, Chiyoh?”

“Not anymore. They shattered me out of stillness. They’ll do the same to you, if you aren’t cautious.”

Another step. “A woman named Bedelia Du Maurier told me that if you wanted me dead, you would have killed me already. Is that true? Do I need to worry about seeing your rifle pointed at me again?”

“My rifle was a warning, not a promise. These are not your beasts to hunt. Not your lives to take.”

So close now. He was just beyond the final turn, yet he stopped. His heartbeat rattled his ribs. “What did they do to earn your mercy?”

He heard her shift, and he saw her. She backed away slowly, facing him, her back toward the exit. The crown of her head came into view, then her eyes, alight with intensity, with calm, with contradiction. Soon she was entirely in his view, steel gaze locking him in place. She moved deliberately, easily, as if drifting through water. Or through a dream.

When she spoke, he heard iron in her voice. “There are means of influence other than violence. Mercy is but one.” Another step and she would be gone.

He swallowed, turning the letter over in his hands. “I want to know them.” His breath hitched, her eyes boring into him. As if she saw everything, every dark thought, every bitter feeling. The blood-bright roots of his fascination, the black soil alight with sparks of electric blue.

She didn’t look away. “They can smell that desire on you. It hasn’t roused them into movement, not yet, but if you keep calling, they will rise to meet your challenge. They’ll corner you, and they will shatter you like they shattered me. End your hunt now, before the wind changes.”

Spencer’s chest tightened.

_Is she trying to save them? Or me?_

With movements slight and slow, Chiyoh opened the door and backed away from him, taking her knowledge with her. While the logical part of his mind screamed and heaved itself forward, his feet remained in place, legs and hands heavy.

He looked down at the envelope, tracing his thumb over the waxen face of the stag. He shivered.

Taking a seat on the stairs, Spencer drew his index finger under the seal, the sound of his pulse thundering in his ears as he drew out the letter nestled inside. 

> Dear Dr. Reid,
> 
> “The geographical pilgrimage is the symbolic acting out of an inner journey. The inner journey is the interpolation of the meanings and signs of the outer pilgrimage. One can have one without the other. It is best to have both.”
> 
> -Thomas Merton
> 
> We are curious, Dr. Reid, of what inner journey has brought you so near to us. We are able to set aside our curiosity if you afford us the same kindness.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Dr. Hannibal Lecter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right?? Chiyoh's back! Hannibal and Will know! Spencer knows they know! *Cue Hannibal theme music*
> 
> But I do need to talk to you about something serious, readers. So, here goes:
> 
> In an over-abundance of caution, I will most likely be adding a CW to Chapter 7 for non-graphic references to the events of the Criminal Minds Season 12 finale. It will concern the emotional toll of those events more than the events themselves. I will include the full details in the beginning note of Chapter 7. 
> 
> I'm trying to be very cautious and sensitive to the needs of my readers, and I feel better giving you some warning. I did not anticipate writing the chapter this way, so I apologize if I have caused disappointment with incomplete tags on my fic. I hope you'll come back to see where this adventure goes. Thank you for reading!


	7. The Pendulum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back, my darlings, and Happy April! Let’s dive in, shall we?
> 
> **1) CW for Chapter 7: brief, non-graphic reference to canon gaslighting about a sexual assault; discussion of the feeling of violation; grief.**
> 
> 2) If you haven’t yet, please hop back to Chapter 1 and check out the gorgeous banner for Merit made by the talented, brilliant, and kind @TreacleA! Thank you for your beautiful art, my friend! 
> 
> 3) Thank you to my wonderful friend @HarkerX for reviewing this chapter and sharing your immensely helpful thoughts and reactions! I adore you and I so appreciate your feedback!
> 
> 4) Thank you all for your comments, kudos, and support! You are, every one of you, amazing and appreciated 💖

* * *

 

A pillar of white, cold light cut through the window, illuminating Spencer’s hotel room in a way that made everything feel clinical and distant. It felt fluorescent, scratching at his dry eyes and setting his teeth on edge. His face was raw, tight, as if he’d been crying.

He hadn’t cried. Not in a great while. He was not so far removed from poetry to say that his well had run dry; rather, the rope had snapped, had surrendered to decay and the relentless swing of gravity. His grief was a well dug deep into his chest but he could merely stare into it, marvel at his own reflection on its surface. It was part of him yet distanced from him; he felt its hollow chasm but would not touch it. 

He was left to fester at the crest of his own turmoil, unable to heal, and unwilling to repair what damage was actually within his power to restore.

 _I should see a psychiatrist_.

He almost laughed, but once he started, he feared he’d never stop.

_Why did it have to be Thomas Merton?_

Spencer wasn’t in bed. He’d started there. Once he’d dragged himself back to his room from the stairwell, he’d collapsed in bed and stared at the wall.

And he’d continued staring, clenching his jaw, digging his fingertips into his temples. Crying would be better than this. It would rupture the skin, release the stream of hurt and let the wound begin to breathe.

Instead, he moved from the bed to the chair, from the chair to the floor, and it was there the cold morning light found him. His head on the ground, the covers pulled down from the bed over his shoulders, eyes red but dry.

He should be fixating on the letter. Spencer knew that. He’d received direct communication from Hannibal Lecter, an explicit acknowledgement of Spencer’s presence in their orbit. Hannibal and Will knew he was there, knew he was looking for them. And they were looking back.

But fixation was unwieldy, not so easily tamed or directed. The whole of the letter was jarring, but it was the quote that stunned him. The quote, selected with such agonizing precision.

_Why did it have to be him?_

Spencer knew he should be running to Altherr. He should be ringing Alana and Margot from the train back to Geneva, telling them what had happened, handing over the letter to forensics. At the very least, he should feel the flood of victory that the men who had so thoroughly captured his imagination had turned their heads and _saw_ him. He should have been in a flurry of interest and activity, of eagerness and momentum.

He blinked, the movement eliciting a tiny, nearly inaudible click.

_It’s been four years. Ten months. Fourteen days. When will this stop? I’ve been squeezed out. I don’t know what’s left for me to give._

Spencer didn’t carry _The Narrative of John Smith_ with him anymore. His one true sacred text, his gift from Maeve, inscribed with her message. Merton’s words but her intention: "Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone — we find it with another." Her declaration of love. The only proof he had that he’d been loved, that he was someone worth loving. That he was understood. That he wasn’t alone.

He’d stopped carrying it two years after she was taken from him. He kept it on his nightstand at home now. Always within reach. Somewhere safe. He’d reached for it blindly several times while he was in prison, his hand falling away empty at every attempt.

His hand was outstretched now, his palm resting on the carpet.

He wondered, vaguely, if Hannibal had known using Merton would crush him.

He swallowed. Everything felt distant, bleached, rough. He welcomed it. He closed his eyes and he thought of Maeve, and for one quiet, blissful moment, all he saw was her.

But it was never just her anymore. It was never just Maeve.

He felt his thoughts begin to slide, and he was powerless to stop them. Another face lingered at the edges of his mind, a face cut in two by a wide, malicious grin.

_Spencie._

Spencer turned his head against the floor, gritting his teeth and grinding his forehead into the carpet. His breath hitched under the weight of a dry sob. “ _No_.”

Begging did no good. His own mind betrayed him. Maeve’s gentle eyes blurred, replaced by something feral, something slick and wild. He pictured it so perfectly: Cat’s face, grinning as he sat across from her in the interrogation room. Her games. Her delight in his agony.

Whenever Maeve came to him now, Cat followed. Maeve was no longer his haven of warmth and comfort. No longer safe. His image of her was blistered and distorted by Cat’s lie: her insistence that Spencer was the father of her child, that in the pit of his usurped sobriety, she’d used the memory of Maeve to take the promise of a child from him.

When Cat had first uttered those words, the world spun out from beneath him. His gut clenched and his chest contracted in an frigid lurch. He hadn’t wanted to kill her, then. He’d wanted to die.

He drew his hands up, clutched his hair in his fists. He didn’t recognize the animal moan that escaped him. An echo, a cracked tolling of a funeral bell.

_Cat drugged me. She stole a decade of sobriety from me, and then she took Maeve. She used Maeve to brand me with the threat of violation. To mock the future I wanted more than anything with the only person I’ve loved, the only one who’s loved me._

Even now, knowing that Cat hadn’t dealt him a single hand of truth, the icy hollow in his heart refused to thaw. Cat had insinuated herself so deeply into his mind that Maeve was pushed to the outskirts. That instinctual tightening in his gut kept him curled and immobile on the floor. It had kept him awake all through the night, thoughts caught in a lacerating cycle, oscillating between his love and his utter decimation.

It was agony. Everything inside him thrummed with the burn of bitter frost. Poison was too sweet an ending for someone as vile as Cat Adams.

He rolled onto his back, grinding his palms into his eyes. And then, tumbling into his mind: _How would they do it? How would Hannibal and Will kill Cat?_

A poor safety net. A dangerous one. But the nearest, the most tempting; a net that would feel like silk against his fingers.

He lowered his hands slowly, letting them rest at his sides. He kept his eyes closed, trying to picture the scene. Trying to focus on anything but the tear in his chest. Anything to stop the spiral of desolation twisting through him.

He sorted through Hannibal’s and Will’s methods as if on a projector, pondering their details, their motivations. Their whims. The focus eased his breathing, served as a lighthouse in the storm of his grief.

 _They would do it together. If they chose Cat, they would want to do more than just kill her. Mere murder is base for them, it’s an impulse they’re above. They wouldn’t need to kill her. They would have to want it. They_ —

 _No_.

His eyes flew open, fingers digging into the carpet.

He remembered, with a clarity so vivid and sharp that it sliced at his senses, what he’d said to Captain Altherr when she asked what separated Spencer from Will Graham.

_He does it from the inside out. I have to go inside._

Taking a shallow breath, Spencer let his eyes drift closed, though his body was rigid. The curtain was drawing back; soon he would see it. He would see it all.

In his mind’s eye, he saw a shiver of electric blue light as he set the stage. He pictured himself sitting across from Cat, his bouquet of poisonous flowers clutched in his fist. He pictured her cruel grin, the dark halos around her eyes. He heard the echo of her cold laugh against the walls, the metallic drag of her handcuffs over the table.

But this wasn’t about what Spencer would do. Not entirely.

He reset the stage, drawing that shiver of blue light over the scene in a slow, pendulous wave. He imagined that he was both himself and not himself. That he was Spencer Reid as he could have been, had he lived his life submerged in the dark and brackish sea that was Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham.

 _I don’t poison her,_ he thought, his own voice filling his mind. _Poison is base. It’s … needy. Why is it needy?_

His memory surged, serving him images of the councilman grafted to the tree; of Randall Tier, beaten and elaborately dissected and displayed; of Cassie Boyle, mounted on a stag’s head in a sun-drenched field.

_It’s needy because it’s about debasement. Poison is what Cat is, not what she’s capable of being. I don’t poison her because it’s not … it’s not …_

_Elevation._

This time, the voice in his head was imbued with black velvet. It exhaled from somewhere deep inside him, somewhere untouched in the way that salted earth is untouched. It smoked against him with a soft, insistent seethe, a burn so subtle that it didn’t occur to him to pull away.

He exhaled, his body relaxing against the floor. All but his hands, clenched into fists at his sides.

_I don’t poison her because it wouldn’t be elevating her. It’s indelicate. Indecent. It’s not intimate. If I’m going to turn her into something elegant, something worthy of my attention, I can’t hide behind wrath. I have to allow myself to enjoy the final unveiling. I have to take delight in it._

He swallowed, his fingers tensing hard enough to send a dull ache through his palms.

_I would want to see her face change. I would want to see if she could hold her smile at the end. I … would stab her. Swiftly. Efficiently. Elevating her doesn’t mean prolonging her suffering. Sadism is vulgar, and if I were granted the privilege of revenge, it should be cathartic, not ugly. The moment would be fleeting, but oh, the weight it would hold. I could see her face cloud with emotion and I would let her know I was changing her, just like she changed me._

An eruption of pain, dark and sweet as a plum, as his short nails bit into his flesh.

_I stab her and it’s slow, easy. A pinprick to the gut. My cut lacks Hannibal’s precision; I’m no medical doctor. But I paint in broad strokes and achieve a semblance of the same picture. When I’m done, Cat’s gone. I’m free._

A spreading warmth as blood simmered through the crescent-shaped gouges.

_And that’s where my art can begin._

_How would you do it,_ the velvet voice pressed. _How?_

His eyes fluttered as if he were dreaming. He felt the slow, gentle unhinging of reality, as if drifting off to sleep, but the voice remained. He knew he would need to answer.

He wanted to answer.

_I …_

The shriek of his ringing phone sent him lurching upwards, his limbs jerking awkwardly, returning to the floor with a painful thud.

His breath was ragged. He swore quietly to himself, twisting in his skin as reality settled back over him. Clearing his throat, he snatched up his phone, seeing that it was a video call. He let it ring three more times while he collected himself, wiping his raw, faintly bloody hands on the comforter and calming his breath. Combing his fingers through his hair, he pulled the screen back before accepting, hoping his voice would be steady when he spoke.

The faces of Margot and Alana came into focus. He saw them glance at each other.

“Rough night, Dr. Reid?” Alana began cautiously.

Margot was less subtle. “You look like hell.”

Spencer’s laugh was rough and brittle, echoing in his own ears. He rubbed at his eyes with his fingertips, careful not to reveal his palms to the camera. “Very rough,” he admitted. “It’s been a busy trip.”

“How busy?” Alana asked.

Spencer inhaled slowly, partly to buy himself time, partly to prepare himself. Garcia had been easier. She hadn’t been looking at him when he fabricated his emotional standing.

_And she didn’t interrupt me while I was … exploring._

Alana and Margot wouldn’t fall for it so willingly. They’d see the unsure shift in his eyes, could no doubt see the tension in his face.

He shook his head, refocusing. _They need to know enough. Just enough._

“Busy enough. I met with Dr. Du Maurier. She didn’t seem surprised that Hannibal and Will are alive. She didn’t want to give me any information, but I was able to get a name.”

“Hannibal’s accomplice?” Margot prompted.

“Yes. Chiyoh. No last name was shared.”

Alana glanced down, referring to a set of notes hidden from Spencer’s view. “That’s not one of the names we’ve come across before.”

“Right. Dr. Du Maurier said that Chiyoh’s someone from Hannibal’s past, though she’s still protecting him now. They must have some kind of bond, but it’s not clear what it is, exactly. Dr. Du Maurier either couldn’t or refused to elaborate.”

Alana shifted in her seat. “You think Chiyoh is like Will? Do you think she’s a threat?”

Spencer shook his head. “Chiyoh’s protecting Hannibal and Will, but I don’t think she’s working with them. I saw her again. Here, in Paris.”

Alana’s eyebrows furrowed, while Margot’s arched upwards.

“When?”

“What happened?”

Spencer glanced at the row of red crescent wounds on his free hand, conscious that he was averting his eyes. He corrected himself, looking back into the small camera. “She’s been following me. Keeping tabs on where I am. First it was in my hotel in Geneva, then outside Altherr’s office, and then last night, in the stairwell outside my room. She hasn’t threatened me or mentioned you, though she did encourage me to give up my search.”

“You don’t qualify that as a threat?” Margot’s voice held her song-like lilt, even now, edged in ice.

“No. I haven’t pieced it all together yet, but she’s not like Hannibal and Will. She’s not a hunting me, or you for that matter. I think she’s just … overseeing. She’s not interfering, and she’s not working _for_ them. She just seems to be watching, though she may be reporting back. I’m not positive.”

“And where are you with Hannibal and Will? Have you pulled any more clues off the body found in the library? Emma Surbeck, right?”

Spencer thought back, so many times, so many instances, to the unsubs who lied to him. The way their eyes darted. How their voices pitched. Legs crossing or uncrossing, knuckles popping. A variety of tells, a million different mistakes to give yourself away. He knew all of them. Which made it that much easier to remain still, his eyes centered and focused, voice easy and low.

He didn’t so much as glance at his nightstand, where the letter from Hannibal rested in its own pool of sunlight and shadow.

“No progress yet, but I’m hoping that’ll change once I speak with Captain Altherr tonight. She sent me a text to check in, but we agreed not to discuss any details until we could speak in person. My train back to Geneva leaves in a couple of hours. Altherr and I will meet this evening to discuss what I found out from Dr. Du Maurier.”

He watched as Alana and Margot glanced at each other. He saw Margot’s arm shift, taking Alana’s hand just out of view. The dark-haired woman offered her wife a faint, reassuring smile.

The moment was theirs, making Spencer glance away. He thought of moments he might have had. Of dancing with Maeve in the kitchen. Of how gentle they could have been together, had she lived.

But, it was never just Maeve now, was it?

_Spencie._

He shook his head, clearing his throat. When he spoke, his voice was louder than intended. “I imagine Captain Altherr will advise you to double check your security detail. I’m assuming you’ve landed at your new safehouse?”

They replied in the affirmative.

“Good. I’ll confer with Captain Altherr, but I think you can stay put for a couple of days. Chiyoh seems to just have me on her radar, but we can’t know that for sure. I’m not sure how to contact her, but Dr. Du Maurier seemed to feel like Chiyoh would find me if I stay on Hannibal’s and Will’s trail. I’ll keep at it, see if I can make contact again and get you more information over the next couple of days.”

They scheduled their next call, this one to include Captain Altherr. Once he had hung up the phone, Spencer drew his legs up so he could rest his forehead on his knees.

_Spencie._

He groaned, pressing his knuckles against his temples hard enough to send a band of pain through his skull. It was too much. There was too much noise, too much commotion. He felt as if he’d looked down at himself to examine a frayed thread, only to find that he’d been unraveling for quite some time.

There were too many voices in his head. Too many colors and patterns. He had to stabilize or he’d disintegrate.

He tried to focus, taking a breath that filled his lungs until they ached. _How do I make her stop? How can I make the world stop spinning?_

He listened to the heat push down from the vent above his head, inhaling and exhaling in deep, measured breaths. For a moment, he wondered if he should focus on the psychical, if he should go to the train station early, call Altherr and keep out of his own head for a while. It might grant him some much needed peace. Some quiet.

But the velvet voice nuzzled into him, sending up wisps of smoke. _How would Hannibal and Will stop the spin? How do they silence the voices that cry out for them in the dark?_

And after a pause, _How would I display Cat after stabbing her?_

Blinking heavily, Spencer let himself fall back onto the floor, pushing his fingertips against the weeping wounds on his palm, indulging in the delicate throb of pain.

He let the glimmer of blue light wash over his mind’s eye, setting the stage. He would imagine, would let himself be carried by the tides of his vicious and decadent fantasies. So long as the black velvet in his mind muffled Cat’s voice, he would listen.

And he found that when he listened, he was enraptured.


	8. Geneva, The Cathedral of St. Pierre

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, friends! May is over and I'm so relieved! Thanks for your patience as this all came together. 
> 
> HarkerX, my dear friend, thank you for your feedback and kindness. This chapter went through many, many drafts, but it finally landed where it needed to thanks to you. 
> 
> Let's get this show on the road, lovelies!

* * *

 

The moon was high, but not as bright as it should have been. It was a lonely, fragile sliver stuck through a black expanse of sky. Spencer watched its tired glow through the train window, and for a moment, he swore he could detect the moon’s precarious sway in the cold nighttime breeze.

It was impossible, he knew. It was neither the earth nor the moon rocking on their axes. It was him.

He settled back into his seat, letting his eyes go unfocused before shutting completely. He’d missed his scheduled train back to Geneva. Then he’d missed the next one. And the next. He was two days late in his return. Captain Altherr had sent him a series of probing texts, but she didn’t call, preferring to speak to him face to face. He was grateful for it now. It would give him time to collect himself, to sort and reassemble his scattered pieces, shaping them into some likeness of who he was supposed to be.

Spencer Reid was not a man of inaction. His mind was in either constant motion or precise focus. Even when Maeve died, he hadn’t been able to escape the forward pull. His mind had taken him to unsavory places in his grief, but it moved all the same.

Now, slumped in his seat, eyes ringed in shadow and blood flaking from the half-moon scabs on his palms, Spencer’s mind was fixated. He felt like a bird caught on barbed wire, stung by the promise of pain whether he suffered through his impalement or tore himself free.

He was stuck, the image of Cat—

_As she could be. Elevated._

—branded into his psyche. He had neither the strength nor the will to repress it. It was a mental paralysis he hadn’t experienced in a very long time.

 _Not since I last took Dilaudid._   

He’d spent hours on the floor of his hotel room untethered inside his own mind, exploring it as a child would a carnival house of mirrors. But in his head, none of the reflections were his own. Shadows took on angular, alien shapes, their edges sharp and unexpected. And when the shadows moved, he heard the voice. That black velvet voice, brimming with smoke and sulfur. A voice that promised him something sweet and corrosive, something that would burn its way into his belly, where it would sit and eat at him from the inside.

Spencer pulled his coat tighter around himself, burying his face into the untidy folds of his scarf. He felt hot, unbalanced, his mind a miasma of whispers and violence. He wasn’t sure which scared him more: the idea that this fantasy would be taken from him, as so much else had been taken from him, or that he would, someday, look down to find the spray of blood glancing off his wrists like a kiss.

_I wonder if blood looks different when you’re the one spilling it. If the color changes._

Acknowledging his desire blew a rush of cold air over him, dragging the ice of fear into his belly.

_What’s happening to me?_

Spencer fell backwards into a fitful doze. His fear followed him down, twisting his dreams into shapes he couldn’t name. His mind was alive with colors that couldn’t be unseen.

\---

It was still dark when Spencer arrived in Geneva. He rubbed his eyes and hauled his bag over his shoulder, his free hand in his pocket gingerly grasping the letter from Hannibal Lecter. He looked around as the other nighttime passengers were greeted by their bleary-eyed loved ones. Having no one waiting for him, he wandered into the darkness alone.

He needed to sleep, he knew. Real sleep, not the jerky, shallow naps he’d had in Paris and on the train. His next conversation with Altherr would be tricky. He needed to be alert.

_I told Alana and Margot about Chiyoh. I’ll have to tell Altherr, too. But I can’t tell her about the letter. She’ll take it to forensics, put me in front of a map and ask me to draft a geographic profile._

He ran his free hand through his hair, wild and unbrushed.

_I’d have to lead her in the wrong direction._

The thought of it—the deception, the intricate details of each lie he’d need to weave—tied off knots of pain between his shoulder blades. His mind flickered back to the dreams he’d wrung from himself in Paris. He forced himself to stand straighter, wincing.

_No, I can’t tell Altherr about the letter. I can’t let her find them before I do._

He wandered aimlessly, eyes on the ground ahead of him, mind cast elsewhere. He had spent so much of his life afraid. He’d been terrified of schizophrenia, relieved when he’d turned 30 and put the likelihood of it behind him. It was only too quickly replaced with the threat of dementia, a lingering snare that wound tighter around his neck every time he visited his mother. When his migraines started, he’d thought his mind was folding in on itself. He’d rebuked every doctor who tried to tell him otherwise: he _knew_ it was not a psychosomatic pain. He _knew_ when there was something wrong.

And now, walking alone in the dark, a design of his own making still sparking behind his eyes, Spencer knew there was something very wrong.

 _I feel unstable_.

He stalled, his feet going still beneath him. Shivering from something deeper than cold, he craned his head upward, taking in the dark silhouette before him.

The Cathedral of St. Pierre was foreboding. Spencer held an appreciation for architecture, and while he wasn’t a religious man, he appreciated the history and lore that surrounded houses of worship. But they took on a sinister atmosphere at night. The stained glass was black in the dim moonlight, making him think of the eyes of the dead. The eyes of the victims he’d seen, so many lives cut brutally short. So many eyes gone cloudy and distant, with Spencer bearing witness.

_Cold, unseeing eyes, lifeless in a way that makes it seem like they’ve never been human at all. Undoing everything that made them who they were. Changing them._

A sharp chill rocked through him, pushing him into shuddering movement. The cathedral was closed to visitors at this hour, yet the door was propped open. Just a crack, almost lost in the night. But Spencer saw the darkness, and went to it.

Once he was inside, he saw the low flicker of candlelight, a mere ghost of color against the stone floors. He followed it, beckoned, almost sleepwalking deeper into the belly of the building until he reached a small chapel. He slowed to a halt in the doorway, hesitating.

The silhouette, still against the dancing glow of firelight, confirmed that he was not alone.

Candles were lit on and around the altar, offering a taste of the beauty before him. Elegant archways were cloaked in gossamer veils of shadow, a welcome and a warning given in the same breath. The chapel’s exquisite stained glass windows, famous in the daylight, were smooth and opaque as ink against the nighttime sky, the dim light revealing only glints of the true depth of their color. His footsteps were hollow, somehow muffled, as if he had abandoned his body at the entrance and was merely a projection, a specter haunting this hallowed ground. It was a place untethered from reality, as if lifted directly from his troubled dreams.

And there she was, his patron saint of the ethereally unreal.

“Hello again, Chiyoh.”

His voice was low, but it carried clearly in the small, stone room. She turned to look at him; she did not seem at all surprised to find him there.

“Still out hunting, Dr. Reid.”

In place of a response, Spencer dragged himself forward, eyes on the altar as he let himself fall into the seat beside her. He tugged his fingers through his hair, offering her a tired smile. He could feel that it didn’t reach his eyes.

She returned it, though hers seemed to edge more towards sadness. He watched as she observed him, saw her trace the circles under his eyes, the stubble on his cheeks. “You haven’t slept.”

He cleared his throat lightly. “No. It’s been a fitful couple of nights.”

“Wandering the stairwells?”

He let out a soft huff of laughter. “Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham kept me up, not you.”

She turned to stare into the small flashes of firelight. He followed her gaze, aware of his breathing, how loud it sounded next to her, surrounded by her careful silence. He ignored the fire, staring instead at the smoke, watching it coil up in wisps before it faded entirely.

_Disappearing. Without much of a fight._

It was several moments before Chiyoh spoke again. “Did their letter settle your curiosity?”

“My curiosity? Yes. I don’t think I’m curious about them anymore.”

“What are you now?”

Spencer’s gaze dropped to his hands. “Terrified. Enchanted.” He struggled, his voice pitching lower. “I’m lost. I know they’re a poor compass, but what they do is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. They take what’s ugly and make it beautiful.”

He turned his palms upward, gingerly drawing his fingertips over the wounds, across the delicate purple bruises smearing away from where his fingernails had torn in. “They spin blood into silk. Turn death into sonnets.”

Spencer felt her attention lock onto his palms like pins, like pressure. Heat rushed up his neck and into his cheeks. He winced, closing his fingers into loose fists.

When she turned her eyes back to the altar, he almost thanked her.

“Hannibal would be pleased to hear you speak that way.”

“You’re not.”

“No. I find no enchantment in what they do.”

He bit his lip. “But have you ever needed to? Have you ever _needed_ beauty to come from something bottomless and horrible?”

There was a twitch of movement. Not a full reaction; Spencer understood she was far too composed for him to have shaken her. It was more an all-consuming, immediate tension. As if she was flexing a memory, or preparing to lay down a burden slung across her shoulders, one that had been there for much longer than he could guess.

When she spoke, her voice was like cold, clean air rushing down from a mountain.

“Hannibal was curious, once, to see if I would take a life. I refused him. I chose a cage he built for me, gilded with fireflies and bone. I thought I was safe, that a prison of my own choosing was a the same as a shield. Will found me there, understood Hannibal’s curiosity, and presented me with the same choice. But Will made it so I couldn’t refuse.”

Chiyoh tilted her head just slightly, as if listening to the small chorus of flames, each flickering to a hymn Spencer could not hear. Even next to him she was a phantom. He could feel no heat around her, couldn’t even register the whisper of her breathing.

She continued. “They finish each other’s games that way. They lash each other into fevers of experience and evolution. Hannibal enjoys exciting that fever in others. His greatest joy was discovering that ember already glowing inside Will Graham. There was nothing to ignite. He merely needed to stoke the flames.

“That ember exists inside you, or it does not. It doesn’t exist in me. Not in the way Hannibal wanted.”

“Does that mean it exists in another way?”

She considered it carefully. “I find no enchantment in their horror, though perhaps I find solace in their freedom. I suppose that is just as destructive.”

Spencer frowned, cogs clicking into place. “You’ve been helping them all this time, haven’t you? Did you … was it you who saved them?”

“I didn’t pull them from the ocean. Fate delivered them to the sand, but I intervened where fate diverged. They forced me to take a life, and now their lives belong to me. Hannibal taught me to hunt, but it was Will who brought the blood to my mouth. I don’t have their taste for it. But killing them would be a surrender, would be a cage of their making. This way, all of us wild, I’m at least in a cage of my own design. And it’s one they share with me, no matter where they go.”

Spencer hesitated, battening his courage. “The other lives you took, the ones in Italy and the ones at Muskrat Farm … were they part of your cage?”

Chiyoh couldn’t fully hide her grimace, though she blurred it with a curt nod. “They were choices. That makes a considerable difference. I protected Hannibal the only way I knew how, but I did not delight in it.”

“You take no delight in killing, yet you allow them to kill?” The words were out before he could stop them. He only regretted them for their intensity, not for their intent.

Her frown was quick and severe. “I know enough to step back when their growling becomes too frenzied.”

Realization spilled over him all at once. “You’re the reason they haven’t killed anyone until recently, aren’t you? That, or you're the reason their murders haven't garnered any attention until now. You haven’t just been helping them. You’ve been herding them.”

“As I said. We share the same cage.”

In that moment, Spencer felt the overwhelming urge to reach out and take her hand. Not because she needed it, but because he did. He was lost at sea, waves crashing around him.

_I thought she might understand this … whatever it is that’s happening inside me. I was wrong. This storm she’s caught in, it’s not the same as mine._

He knitted his fingers together in his lap, flexing his shoulders to hide the chill raking through him. “I never used to think of myself as caged. Once I went to prison, it’s all I could think about. It’s only recently that I feel like I’ve been scratching at a door that’s not there anymore. I used to think I could only hurt someone in self defense, and I have, when I’ve needed to. I’ve only hurt people when I _didn’t_ have a choice. I guess I used to find some semblance of comfort in that. I can’t delight in something involuntary, but I can’t be completely repulsed by it, either.”

“Actions born of necessity can lack the weight of significance.” Said cooly, as if recited. Spencer couldn’t help but wonder if Hannibal had given those words to her.

He glanced at her, nodding. “I’ve seen how ugly murder is, how it destroys the people left behind. I’ve never wanted to cause that kind of pain, but then again, I always thought pain was the only outcome of death. I’ve spent so much time convincing mourners that it’s life that matters. I never thought death could be meaningful itself. I used to think I would never choose violence. I was convinced I could never do what they do.”

“But you think you can now?”

He hesitated. “I don’t know if I can. But I want to.”

“What they do won’t bring meaning to your chaos.”

His chin dipped to meet his chest. “I know. But it might make my chaos beautiful. And maybe, if it’s beautiful, I can survive it.”

Chiyoh stared into the fire, rings of light glinting off her face. She was iron where Spencer was silt, and oh, how he envied her that strength. After a moment, she ventured, “What will you do with your chaos now?”

For all his untruths, the shades of deception he’d cast out to Garcia, to Alana and Margot, it didn’t occur to him to lie to Chiyoh. “I have to keep it chained for now, until I find them.”

“You don’t know where they are.” There was no venom in her voice, no challenge issued. It was a mere statement of fact.

Spencer countered all the same. “I was a behavioral analyst for the FBI back in the U.S. My specialty was creating geographic profiles. I took clues from crime scenes and I helped figure out where killers liked to hunt and where they were likely to hide. Given the clues they’ve left so far? With a good night’s sleep and some strong coffee, I can get close.”

“Oh?”

Spencer’s tongue darted out to wet his bottom lip. “Hannibal’s a man of taste. Their last victim was decorated with flowers that aren’t blooming in the wild, not in this region, and not this late into autumn. That means Hannibal’s buying his flowers from a florist, or more likely, he has access to a greenhouse. A greenhouse grants him both variety and control, where a florist not only limits his options, but exposes him and Will to the danger of being recognized. Where Hannibal’s led by a sense of refinement, Will’s more practical. They may be hunting here, but this isn’t where they sleep. Will would keep them distant from the city, somewhere safe, somewhere they could sustain themselves, especially now with winter coming. That points to a farm, somewhere with natural resources at their disposal.”

He retrieved the letter from his pocket, smoothing his thumb over the wax face of the stag. “When I opened the letter, it smelled like conifers and gun smoke. I can only assume that’s your doing. You had to travel outside to get this from them. Somewhere surrounded by trees.”

He glanced up at her. She was watching him intently, eyes bright and unreadable.

He continued. “I’d have to do some research to be sure. Cross-reference public and privately owned greenhouses, see how many of them run up against the woods. See which of those have a close enough proximity to small towns that reach Geneva within a few hours. I’m not sure where they got the jeweled flowers, but I’m sure there’s a record of them somewhere, a reference in a museum or a shop, or maybe notes from an appraiser. It would take a little time and patience. I don’t have the resources here I would’ve had in the U.S., but I can find them.”

They stared at each other in the pale dancing light. Spencer’s shoulders ached from tension, a headache creeping into his temples.

Chiyoh inhaled deeply, the first audible breath he’d heard her take. Her eyes flashed. “I could have shot you that day, in the sunlight. I could have stopped you in the way they would want me to. But I’m not theirs. Neither are you, but I see that they’ve shaken you to the point of fracture. Are you familiar with _kintsugi_?”

He nodded.

“Hannibal and Will aren’t gold. They won’t repair the damage in you. They’ll push against you gently enough so you can’t feel the cracks forming, but they’ll spread through you just the same. They made me take a life. I won’t take another. Not theirs, and not yours. I’ve gathered up my shards. I will not be broken a second time.”

Her voice, fierce and low, was like ice in the fever of his thoughts. “You’re looking for a choice, so choose to walk away. Don’t let them change you. You don’t deserve to be changed.”

She stood slowly, a shimmer in the dim light and smoke. Spencer watched her movements, deliberate, controlled. He understood that she was her own master, her own savior. She was solid in a way he wasn’t, in a way he’d lost. He saw her steadiness and it felt like surfacing, felt like air in his aching lungs after choking in the sea.

And for a moment, for a brief, breathtaking moment, the fog in his mind evaporated.

He saw a way out.

“Do you know if they plan to harm Alana Bloom?”

She turned to look at him. He nodded, almost to himself, leaning forward. “If her safety and the safety of her family is guaranteed, then there’s no reason for me to stay.”

“If I said yes, you’d leave this behind you?”

“Only if you were sincere. If Alana and her wife and child are safe, my job’s done. I can go home.”

He held her gaze for a long stretch of silence, letting it build between them, hard and heavy. Finally, he saw her shoulders go slack as she released a snow-soft breath.

“Give me three days. Return here, at nightfall.”

She turned then, glancing back for a moment to catch Spencer’s eye a final time. “Don’t let them change you, Dr. Reid.”

He opened his mouth, wanting to call to her, to implore her to sit with him for a few moments more. He could feel himself wanting to drift, to dissolve back into that world inside his head where the darkness sparked like an ember, hot and inviting. He wanted to lay down at her feet, exposed and shivering. He wanted to be saved.

_She’s immune. But maybe she can still help me. Maybe it’s not too late._

He let his plea wither in his throat, curling back into his seat. His eyes dropped back down to the letter in his hands, to the stag, its antlers sharp and inviting. He drew his fingertips over it, the red wax deepening to black in the firelight.


	9. The Woods

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and happy summer, my dears! Thank you for your patience as this chapter came together. You're all so lovely, and I'm so pleased to have you back for this very exciting installment. MASSIVE thanks to my wonderful friend HarkerX for beta reading this and cleaning it up for all of you to enjoy. Couldn't have done this without you, love!
> 
> This is a long one, friends--double the length of my usual chapters. Settle in, grab a snack, hydrate, and let's see what happens to our dear baby Spencer Reid.

* * *

 

Three days. 

Chiyoh needed three days to determine whether Alana and Margot were safe. Three days to contact Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham. 

Three days, and Spencer might be able to go home.

_Home. Where is home, now?_

He ruminated over the idea when he finally pushed into his hotel room, the conversation with Chiyoh echoing in his mind. The notion of getting out, of escaping this case and where it was taking him, had seemed so promising a mere hour ago, like an anchor against the surge of instability. Now, his hope turned sour and sank into his belly, burned up his throat, tasting of loss.

_If I leave now, who will I be when I go back?_

The question followed him down into sleep. Spencer dreamed of shattered mirrors and the infinite reflections cast upon them. 

He woke just a few hours later, knowing he was out of time—he couldn’t avoid meeting with Captain Altherr any longer. He stared into the bathroom sink watching the water disappear down the drain, trying to get his bearings.

What he’d told Chiyoh was true: it was only a matter of time before he figured out where Hannibal and Will were hiding. 

_What will I do when I find them?_

Spencer couldn’t conjure an answer, and it frightened him. Staying in Geneva would only magnify that fear. But the idea of going back to Virginia felt like stones in his gut, heavy and gritty and bitter. Even remembering his conversation with Garcia, with the reminder of her love dusting him like fresh snow, he wasn’t ready to go back. The BAU didn’t feel like home, not anymore. 

_Geneva doesn’t feel like home, either, but at least here I’ve got forward momentum._

Even if that momentum came in the form of the velvet voice dragging against his ear, whispering, sighing. Imploring him to return to the fantasy he’d conjured in Paris. 

The fantasy of how he would elevate Cat Adams.

He shuddered and brought another splash of water to his face, this time holding his palms over his eyes and letting his forehead rest against the cold metal faucet.

He wondered, if he did stay, how much of him would be left for Hannibal and Will to change. 

He straightened slowly, his hands falling away as he stared at himself in the mirror. Gazing vacantly into his own eyes.  

_Three days. I can manage three days._

\---

The first day was the easiest, despite his bone-aching exhaustion and the resulting slowed speech and uptick in stammering. He reunited with Captain Altherr, answering questions about his interview with Bedelia while dodging others about his delay. He deflected, much to Altherr’s chagrin. 

“What happened in Paris, Dr. Reid? What has you so shaken that you can’t sit still?”

Spencer caught himself, halting the slow but persistent thumping of his heel against the leg of his chair. He reclined in his seat with a frown, pushing inward, retrieving that sense of control he’d had while talking to Garcia. He’d faked it once. He could do it again.

_It’s not anything I haven’t already tested with Alana and Margot._

“I met the accomplice in Paris. Uh, Chiyoh. She followed me to my hotel, caught me as I was heading to my room. She said I’m getting too close and tried to steer me away from chasing Hannibal and Will.”

“Too close? Did she mean too close to their location? You think they were in Paris, going after Du Maurier?”

Spencer cleared his throat, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s difficult to say.” He gave Altherr the same brief sketch of events he’d shared with Alana and Margot, making sure to answer her questions with as little information as he could give. 

When she pushed him again about his late return, he stammered out his answer. It felt safest to lay the blame at Chiyoh’s feet. “I wanted to see if I could find her again, since it was clear Bedelia wasn’t going to give me any additional information. I thought I could try to find out if Hannibal and Will really did send her, if they were in Paris at all. I wanted to be careful and take my time since she’s already proven she’s following me. I should have told you, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to reveal too much over the phone.”

Altherr surprised him with a thoughtful nod. “A wise decision. There’s no telling where she might have turned up, or what she could have done if she heard you relaying the information back. You made the right call.”

Spencer waited for the thread of guilt to knit into his stomach, as it had when he lied to Garcia. There was a disconcerting lightness in its absence.

Next they caught up on the Vetsch and Surbeck cases, trading theories and reviewing new notes from the coroner. There had been no new developments on Vetsch, but they finally had a cause of death for Emma Surbeck: asphyxiation.

Spencer frowned. “But she didn’t have any DNA under her nails, did she? There wasn’t a mark on her. It doesn’t look like she fought back at all. How could they have suffocated her without leaving bruises or incurring defensive wounds?”

Altherr rubbed her eyes, shaking her head. “They couldn’t have, unless she was somehow incapacitated.”

“Meaning they suffocated her while she was already unconscious. But there was nothing unusual in the tox screen.”

Altherr growled out her frustration. “Why Emma Surbeck? Why this way?” 

He tried to match her expression, tugging at his hair and heaving a deep sigh. “Their last victim was a killer. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that they completely abandoned that M.O. with Emma. They may have chosen her _because_ she was innocent just to keep us off their trail. But there’s a reason why they chose her. They wouldn’t have done it otherwise.”

The captain leaned back in her seat, rubbing at her temple. “What reason could they possibly have for suffocating an innocent woman?”

 _How is it elevation?_ The velvet voice. Brimming with smoke and sulfur. 

Spencer twitched his head, as if he could pull away from the voice. Still, he felt it, impossibly soft against the shell of his ear. Goosebumps trailed his arms. He tugged down the rolled sleeves of his cardigan and shrugged, hoping he was projecting confusion through his fatigue. He wished he’d grabbed aspirin from his hotel; the headache blooming behind his eyes was real enough. 

“Maybe it was personal. Maybe she was rude. They wouldn’t choose someone without reason. Aimless torture isn’t their forte.”

Altherr scoffed. “Tell that to Abel Gideon and Cassie Boyle. Or Frederick Chilton, for that matter.”

 _You don’t understand_ , he wanted to say, _it wasn’t aimless. Everything they do has purpose._ He thought better of it, instead countering with, “Francis Dolarhyde was responsible for Chilton.”

“Oh? Who put Chilton in Dolarhyde’s path? I know you’ve worked some particularly disturbing cases, Dr. Reid, but don’t let yourself believe that Hannibal and Will aren’t capable of torment just because they have a different standard of brutality than the Red Dragon.”

Spencer didn’t answer, the truth of her statement settling beneath his ribs with an uncomfortable weight. 

Instead he deflected, refocusing their conversation on victimology, trying to identify why Emma Surbeck was taken. They reviewed her last known location, interviews with her friends and family, combed the tox screen for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing. “She was mutilated post-mortem,” he said absently. “Other than the fact that she’s dead, there’s nothing about her murder that indicates violence.”

_Nothing about this was violent._

Spencer went quiet, cogs beginning to spin. 

_Maybe they didn’t want to kill her at all. Maybe it was unavoidable. Even in killing her, they tried not to hurt her: they showed mercy. Empathy. That kind of emotional attachment takes time to cultivate. Time, and care._

A spark of electric blue set his mind alight.

 _Enough time and care to form a relationship. Emma Surbeck not only interacted with them, she trusted them. She_ **_knew_ ** _them. At least, she thought she did._

“Captain?”

Altherr looked up. “Hm?”

He bit his lip, reconsidering. Maybe he shouldn’t tell her. If he told her, he might lose his shot at Hannibal and Will.

But he had to know. 

“Emma’s last known location was her job, wasn’t it? She disappeared after she left work?”

“That’s right.” Altherr pushed her files around on her desk, hunting for the right page. “Yes, she was an apprentice in an auction house. Why? What are you thinking?”

He hesitated. 

But he couldn’t hide this. 

“I … I don’t think Emma’s part of their pattern at all. I don’t think they killed her because they wanted to, not like Simon Vetsch. I think they killed her because they had to, because she figured out who they really are.”

He took a breath. “I think they knew where she worked, and they took her when they knew she’d be vulnerable. That means they knew her patterns, they were familiar with her daily schedule. They learned about her. Took time to understand her.”

“But they understood Vetsch too, didn’t they? They knew he was a killer. They chose him because of what he did.”

“They knew enough about Vetsch to mock him in death and use his own patterns against him. They knew Emma well enough to take her from a public space without any raising any red flags.”

_Because it would be rude to violently abduct a friend._

He pressed on. “Her death was purely aesthetic, right? They didn’t take any of her organs and she was intricately decorated. She was cared for, as best as she could be _._ The lack of defensive wounds tells us they didn’t hurt her and she didn’t fight them. Almost like she went with them willingly.”

Altherr straightened in her seat, nodding along as he spoke. “It makes sense. But establishing a trusting relationship takes time. That means they’ve been here for a while, right under our noses. Dr. Reid, this means they’ve been to Emma’s auction house. There’s a record of them there, there must be.”

He nodded along, smiling gently as Altherr took notes and drew up a list of calls they needed to make. He was quiet, turning over in his mind shards of information he wouldn’t say aloud:

 _Hannibal and Will didn’t elevate Emma like they did Simon Vetsch. They_ **_honored_ ** _her, because they cared about her. They took her eyes to make her fit the pattern they started with Vetsch, but they didn’t take her organs because they didn’t want to consume her. They were thanking her._

Spencer stayed tucked inside Altherr’s office late into the night, helping her schedule a new round of interviews with Emma’s coworkers and preparing the paperwork to request any video surveillance footage the auction house would have. 

When he finally went back to his hotel, he fell asleep after only an hour of staring at the ceiling. Mercifully, he didn’t dream.

\---

The second day was more difficult, despite the fact that he felt more rested. It was inevitable, given the breakthrough they’d made the day before. It was the day Spencer had feared was coming: Altherr set him in front of a map.

“I would like you to put together a geographic profile for me. It doesn’t need to be anything actionable yet, just some material to get us thinking. I feel I’ve underutilized your experience in the FBI, and it’s time we correct that.”

She held out a box of pushpins and gestured toward two maps hanging on a large corkboard bulletin board across from her desk. One depicted the whole of Switzerland, while the other was a zoomed-in, more detailed map of Geneva. “We know now that Hannibal and Will have been to the auction house where Emma worked. I’d like you to look at any routes between the auction house and the Bibliothèque de Genève, where her body was found. They transported her there without being seen. That required both skill and luck. Let’s make note of any routes that are private enough to be used to transport a body. I’d also like you to mark the location of the Vetsch crime scene and look for routes connecting it to the auction house. There may be a geographic pattern here that we aren’t seeing.”

Spencer could only nod, gingerly taking the box as if it were a barbed thing. The captain gave him an uncharacteristically warm smile—the fact that she smiled at him at all was unexpected. 

He glanced away, unable to return the gesture. He fidgeted with the box before stepping around her and up to the map. “Sure, o-of course. I’ll have something for you soon.”

“We’re onto something here, Dr. Reid. I have additional interviews with Emma’s coworkers this morning. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

He nodded, watching her as she left him alone in her office. His gaze fell back down to the box in his hands.

_She thinks we’re closer to solving the puzzle. But Altherr doesn’t know I’m holding the missing pieces._

The smell of conifers. The knowledge that Chiyoh traveled outside to find Hannibal and Will. And the glittering gemstone violets in Emma Surbeck’s eyes. 

He rubbed the back of his neck.

_Too glaring an omission will make Altherr suspicious. Outright lies risk making me look incompetent; she might pull me off the case._

He thought of Chiyoh then, of the purpose for this three-day purgatory. 

_If Alana and Margot are safe, do I still want the case?_

He bit his lip.

_Do I want Hannibal and Will caught, even if I’m not the one catching them?_

He thought for a moment, taking a step back to scan the map of Geneva. He started slowly, placing pins in the locations for the two crime scenes and Emma’s workplace, as instructed. They formed an awkward triangle through the city. He fidgeted, taking in the stitching of main roads, public transportation lines, and parks. All were plausible paths for individuals as clever as Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham. He felt warm, jittery; he felt overwhelmed.

Not by what he was seeing, but by how to hide what he was seeing.

He leaned in to examine the map of Switzerland, observing the same locations but neglecting to place pins on the larger map. His eyes moved in a spiral, working outward from the condensed grey of the city, taking in the beige of the towns nearby, the black threads of road spreading like veins across the landscape. Outward still over tepid green, denoting expanses of forest. Once the green started, it went on and on, endless miles of possibilities.

_The smell of conifers. Sap and soil._

An electric blue spark flared in his mind. He reached out, fingertips tracing the stretch of green, his heartbeat quickening in his ears.

_The Risoud Forest spans the border between Switzerland and France, 2200 continuous hectares of trees. It’s dense and vast, the largest contiguous forest in Europe. Expeditions into the Risoud can last for days. Jurisdiction would be an issue for authorities depending on exactly where, and if, bodies were found. They’d need to involve Interpol._

Prentiss had visited the Risoud, he recalled. She’d told him about the cabins there, few and far between as they were. How hikers could only stay on a first come, first served basis. “You have to make your own place in those woods,” she’d said. “It’s a true wilderness out there.” 

Myths were born between those trees; it only made sense that legends would seek refuge there.

He traced his fingertips along the periphery of the forest where the green wavered, intensifying and fading as the landscape shifted. 

_Mountains, I suspect. But these flatter areas … that’s farmland._

Nestled alongside the woods. So close, so intimate, that it was difficult to distinguish the farm from the forest.

The thought of the gemstone violets glittering against Emma’s cheeks flashed into his mind once more.

_All the flowers left on her body represented affection. Definitely between Hannibal and Will, but I suspect for her, as well. Violets represent faithfulness—a trait as valuable in friends as it is in lovers._

Her death was gentle, as respectful as they could have made it. It was imbued with gratitude, as much as they could give.  

_I wonder if Emma took them into the forest. If she found them a place to hide._

_I wonder if that’s where they killed her._

He couldn’t help but think of how quickly  Garcia would be able to access Emma’s recent credit card and travel history. He wished he could hear her light, cheerful voice rattling off the list of information. 

He pushed the thought aside, turning instead to the department-issued laptop Altherr had loaned him. He cringed, knowing his search wouldn’t be private from the department forever. They’d follow his trail eventually.

Still, he searched, drilling down into as many records as he had access to. He found it suddenly, its coordinates listed in a missing person’s report: a farm hidden in a sea of green. He glanced up at the map of Switzerland. It wasn’t even identifiable as a farm on the map, its boundaries lost to the forest. Records showed that the farmland was currently unused; the owner had gone missing over a year prior and no other buyers had swooped in to purchase the land. The small dairy and greenhouse were no longer active. 

Notes remembered, but not written down.

_Do I want them found?_

He lifted his hand, red half-moon cuts smirking up at him. They were still healing, still sore. A constant reminder of how far inside himself he’d gone. Debris from what he’d unearthed.

_Chiyoh comes back tomorrow. I can decide then how much to tell Altherr. I don’t need to do anything yet. Not yet._

When Altherr returned, she shared the mostly useless scraps of information she’d gleaned from her interviews and they talked through some ideas, setting a few scattered pins into the map together. Spencer kept his own theories hidden under his tongue. They spoke in hushed voices, almost superstitiously, over mugs of coffee that started hot but were finished cold. They worked well into the night, with Spencer eventually passing out on the cramped couch in the break room rather than going back to his hotel.

He fell asleep gazing at the scabs on his palms, wondering when they would heal.

\---

One the third day, Spencer’s tenuous balance ruptured. 

He woke with a stiff neck and sore lower back, groaning as he stretched himself in the grey morning light. He greeted a few of the other officers who had worked overnight as he made his way to Altherr’s empty office to retrieve a file. Massaging the back of his neck, he stared at the maps, his eyes drawn back to that tiny dot of farmland once more. He drew a spiral out with his gaze, connections humming in his mind. He imagined the trains running over the countryside like sutures, the various stations it would take to get there. 

_It would be quicker if one of them had a car. It’s certainly far enough for privacy. Plus, the land around the Risoud is mountainous, expansive. When Hannibal and Will run out of forest, they can take to the hills or lose themselves in a city. They could easily cross into France and hide there, if they haven’t already. There’s no corner to back them into._

Spencer sucked his lower lip between his teeth, fixated. 

_And the owner of this farm is still missing._

He should wait. Chiyoh would meet with him that night. He could have his answer, and he could decide from there whether he wanted to continue the chase. 

_I can leave the case to Altherr. I can trust Chiyoh to keep Hannibal and Will in check._

His fingernails caught against the scabs on his palms. 

He heard Chiyoh’s voice again, pleading: _Do not let them change you._

His hand was already moving. 

Spencer inhaled sharply, moving to the map of Geneva in a quick, fluid motion. He peppered the border with pins. Some of the locations would be plausible distractions. Others were blatantly misleading. Altherr wouldn’t be able to distinguish them until she’d investigated each one properly. It would keep her occupied.

As he worked, he heard neither Cat Adams’ voice in his head, nor the voice of velvet smoke. In that moment, the only echo inside Spencer’s mind was his own.

_I want them._

He tapped the final pin with his knuckle as he turned his back to the map. Then Spencer pulled on his coat and drew his scarf around his neck, pausing only to collect his bag.

He nodded to one of the other officers on his way out. When prompted, he noted that he was stepping out for a fresh cup of coffee.The lie came easily, so much more easily than he would have imagined.

He turned off his phone as soon as he left the station. He’d worked with Garcia long enough to know it could be used to track him. He didn’t go to the closest train station, either; that would be too easy. He meandered, finally settling on a station near the edge of the city. 

He rode for several hours, moving forward and backward across Switzerland. Altherr would come looking for him eventually, probably sooner than he was giving her credit for. Best give her a puzzle worth solving. 

He finally departed at the station for the Vallée de Joux. He wasn’t afraid, though his body was taut with expectation, with unspent energy. 

Spencer needed neither map nor bike. In the end, he was simply a silhouette, a shadow moving first through a park, then along a trail that lost its way as its edges blurred into forest. The biting wind of autumn followed him, blew through his hair to cut against his cheeks, stung his eyes. 

He inhaled the cold air, heavy with the scent of conifers and earth. 

_Spruce trees. I’ve been smelling spruce trees._

The scent made him think of Chiyoh, and Spencer couldn’t hide from the tug of shame in his belly. 

_She’ll be waiting for me tonight at the chapel. She’ll know right away where I’ve gone. Chiyoh, I’m sorry I’m not as strong as you are._

He remembered the conviction in her voice, the steadiness in her gaze. 

_It’s not up to you to save me, but I’m grateful that you tried._

He squinted up at the clouds, bright with the stolen light of the obscured sun. 

_Even if it shakes me, I need to see them. And I need them to see me._

 ---

Spencer walked. He walked until he slid off his coat and scarf, the cold air a welcome balm against the back of his neck. He walked ever deeper into the woods, the tall spruces quiet and lovely all around him. He felt small and delicate against the expanse of nature, somehow insignificant. He found that it was a relief. 

He walked until his feet hurt and his calves ached. He walked farther, feeling the earth slowly undulate beneath him as he crossed steep hills and fallen trees. 

He walked until he started to doubt himself, wondering if it was possible he misremembered the map.

Then he saw the smoke. A thin, white strip of it curling into the sky, reminding him of a finger beckoning him closer. A reckless move, Spencer thought, giving away their position so blatantly. It was autumn, and hikers would be looking for a place to stay. The smoke would either prompt explorers to move along or…

_Would spark a dinner invitation._

Spencer didn’t mean to smirk, but it blossomed just the same. 

Then came the sounds of life. Movement. Dirt being displaced. The beginnings of a pattern, a rhythmic thunk. A dull echo bouncing through the trees: the cutting of wood. 

Spencer emerged from the forest slowly, entering a clearing streaked with grass far greener than it should have been this time of year. It was more a cabin than a farm: the small log house off to the right couldn’t have contained more than a couple of rooms. It was the cabin sending up the invitation of smoke. 

Ahead of him, a greenhouse, immaculately clean. Spencer could see a ravage of green and sparks of color, even at this distance. Small patches of condensation fogged the windows: it would be warm inside. 

And to his left, off a ways, sat a barn, patches of it looking like new, no doubt where a cow or two had justified the previous owner’s claim of a dairy. Beyond the farm, a small field, perhaps suitable for vegetables, swayed in the breeze, far overgrown with disuse. 

All of it together looked like an impossibility, a miracle of hidden warmth in the dense mountain forest.

_Like a giant fairy ring, marked with spruces instead of mushrooms._

And between the barn and the greenhouse, axe in hand, stood Will Graham. Spencer recognized the shape of him, a shape he had only dared to imagine. Will raised the axe in even, measured motions, bringing it down again and again over a section of felled tree. His hair was mussed, curls disheveled from his work, with bits of bark clinging to his arms. He looked gently wild. Free. 

Spencer could hear him breathing, a rough, vigorous sound. He stared, watching Will’s arms rise and fall. 

_I found you._

In his daze, Spencer moved carelessly, his foot displacing a rock and sending it skittering across the ground.

Will spun in a flash, gripping the axe as his body dropped into a defensive pose. His face rippled, first with surprise, then into something still. Something unreadable. 

Spencer looked down, blinking at his clumsy feet as he drew his hands up. It took a moment before he found his voice. “Will. Will Graham. I’m Spencer Reid.”

Will’s chin dipped, eyes narrowing.

_Defensive. Cautious._

Spencer raised his hands a bit higher. “I’m unarmed. I just want to talk.”

Will’s mouth drew into a sharp line, his shoulders flexing as he stood up straighter. “Where’s the rest of your team? Alana and Margot can’t be foolish enough to have sent you on your own.”

Spencer let his feet stall beneath him. He dropped his hands to let his belongings fall into a heap at his feet, returning them to the air in a slow, steady movement.  

“Chiyoh told you I was coming?”

“She said you might be.”

_She knew, then. She knew I wouldn’t be able to stay away. And she tried to save me, anyway._

Spencer shook his head, refocusing. “I came alone. I’m not here for Alana and Margot. I left those obligations at the edge of the woods.”

Will hummed. “So you came to talk, but you don’t want to talk about the people who sent you here. Exactly what kind of conversation were you hoping for?”

The sound of rushing blood filled Spencer’s ears, his pulse hammering in his throat. His limbs, he realized, ached with the tight thrum of anticipation.

“I want to talk about the way you elevated Simon Vetsch and the way you honored Emma Surbeck.”

His words landed with a blow. Will was quick to recover, but Spencer caught the impact: a slight recoil of his upper body, knuckles flashing white on the throat of the axe. It wasn’t that Spencer knew the names of the victims.

_It’s that I have the language for what was done to them._

Spencer knew better than to speak. He gave the older profiler the silence he needed to respond.

When he did, Will’s voice was tightly controlled, his words spoken through flashes of teeth. “Elevated. Honored. That’s a very particular way of putting things.”

“What was done to them was very particular. It was done with precision, and, I think, with care. Emma, especially. She was…”

Spencer swallowed, caught in Will’s gaze, his attention total and immense. Staring back at Will, any hope the younger man had of disguising his true feelings crumbled to dust.

“...She was _beautiful._ ” 

Will scoffed, dragging his hand over his mouth. “You’re not offended by how she was found. You don’t seem disturbed by it at all. Why is that?”

“I think what was done to Simon and Emma is far beyond the typical murders I saw in the FBI. I don’t see destruction in their deaths. I see elegance. Grace. It _matters._ ”

Spencer’s breath caught in his chest, his voice pitching low, a sigh lost among the trees. “I came here because there’s someone I want to elevate.”

What passed over Will’s face cannot be summarized as simple surprise. It was laced with disbelief, even tinged with mild offense. He blinked quickly, a frown creasing his brow even as a short, rough breath of laughter escaped him. He craned his neck upwards, as if searching the bright slate sky for guidance. 

“You came all the way out here to ask me and Hannibal to kill someone for you?”

Spencer shook his head quickly, his hands dropping to his sides. “No. You misunderstand.” He took a single step forward, his body betraying his eagerness. 

“I want you to show me how to do it.”

Will’s smirk faded, his frown deepening. He almost seemed to pull away. 

Spencer’s breathing came in quick, desperate bursts. He couldn't hide the hitch in his voice as his words broke free. “There’s someone who left an ugly mark in me, a mark I can’t get rid of. I need to make it beautiful. I can’t live with this inside me anymore.”   

The stillness in the clearing was immediate and heavy, a bead of blood welling on a pricked fingertip. 

Then the light in Will’s eyes changed. It softened, taking on a nearly gentle flare. 

 _Sympathy. He understands me. He_ _**sees**._

Spencer swallowed, taking another tentative step. “Please. I need your help.”

Will’s gaze cut through him, analyzing him, Spencer knew. He was watching for facial tremors, perspiration, nervous ticks. Watching to see if Spencer was lying. If he was playing games.

“If we show you how to elevate your demons, what comes next? You said you left your obligations to Alana and Margot at the edge of the woods. Do those obligations pick back up once you move past the treeline?”

Spencer could only shake his head. He wanted this, wanted it so badly it burned. 

_But Alana and Margot are innocent. This darkness is mine. No matter what happens out here, they don’t deserve to die._

 “I … I don’t know yet.”

Will sighed, the light of sympathy fading from his eyes. Spencer felt its departure like a drop in pressure, his body immediately going cold. 

“Then we don’t know how much of a threat you are.”

Only then did Spencer see Will’s eyes shift, locking on to something behind him, only then heard the faintest crunch of cold earth beneath a stealthy gait. There was a shock of pain as a hand, iron in its grip, snaked around his neck and clenched, expertly cutting off his oxygen supply. Spencer’s feet braced into the ground, scrambling for purchase, but it was useless. His own hands weren’t nearly as strong as the one gripping his throat, pinning him against a chest as hard and unforgiving as stone. 

Will’s face remained calm and impassive as Spencer’s vision went watery and grey around the edges. A murmur, rich as black silk, smoothed over his ear. 

“Hello, Dr. Reid.” 

Spencer gasped, sagging as the world faded into darkness.


	10. Bargaining

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back, darlings! Thank you so much for your patience, comments, thoughts, and kudos! This fic means a lot to me and it makes me glow to know you're out there reading! It seems I've settled into a once-per-month update cycle. That's not as quick as I'd like, but please know I think about this fic CONSTANTLY and I'm doing my best to speed things along :) 
> 
> HarkerX, my lovely friend, thank you for your feedback on this very important chapter! You are The Best!
> 
> Now. Where did we leave our dear Spencer Reid? Ah, right, completely at the mercy of Will and Hannibal. And that's just where we want him.

* * *

There was tightness in Spencer’s throat, pulsing around his larynx, up through his ears in a tight band around his head. Everything above his shoulders hurt. His head lolled, a groan breaking into a coughing fit as the bland awareness of pain refined itself, sharpening as he drifted up into consciousness.

His skull was heavy, as if filled with tides and wet sand. Voices drifted around him, somehow soft despite their edge.

“...didn’t look like he was lying.”

“We must be cautious. Intelligence and sincerity are a spectrum that fade nearly to the same color under the right circumstances.”

“We’ll see his true colors soon enough.”

The voices dulled and wavered, slipping over him like the spatter of rain just beginning to fall. He tried to grasp at the tail of awareness but it twisted away, pushing him back down, pinning him like a butterfly for display.  

He coughed again. He made out his name, a candle in the dark drawing him up out of the undertow. 

“Dr. Reid. I know it is rather difficult at the moment, but we will need you to join us now. Are you with us?”

Spencer tried to pull his hands up to his face. Tried again.

He was bound. 

All at once, he was awake. His eyes flew open, body tensing, fingertips digging into the arms of a wooden chair. He braced himself, wrists straining, twisting his head to see where the voices were coming from. 

“Ah, there you are. Be still, Dr. Reid.”

The shadows seemed to fluctuate, almost as if parting in deference. Flanking him on either side, Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham moved from behind, their presence as immense and inescapable as gravity. Under the scrutiny of their twin stares, Spencer felt every bit a lamb in the lions’ den.

He shivered. 

Standing over their prisoner, Will crossed his arms, stern and rigid. His hair was still mussed from chopping wood, flecks of dirt and bark clinging to his exposed forearms. Spencer was relieved that the axe was nowhere in sight. 

But what need was there for an axe with Hannibal looming over him? 

Afternoon light pressed through a small window at their backs, carving shadows along Hannibal’s cheeks. His eyes seemed at once to flash and darken, a solar flare from an untamed galaxy. His posture was more relaxed, shoulders back, his features smooth. Hannibal held his tension in quick movements of his eyes, in the subtle turn of his mouth. It made him no less imposing.

Spencer stared in silence, trying not to think of the last time he'd been tied up in a barn. He couldn’t see the door, guessed his back was to it. The air smelled of wood both new and old, of sawdust, dry grass, and metal. An anvil and torch sat beneath the window before him. Off to the right, behind Hannibal, a wall was lined with tools, well-used but not rusted. A scattering of engine parts, Spencer guessed for a car or a boat, sat on a small table.

He could not see any signs of spilled blood, no rust-red trails, no speckling on the walls. There was no drainage system here, nowhere they could have easily washed it away. He was not in the room they’d used to kill Emma Surbeck. This planted within him a small, glittering bead of hope.

Hannibal removed a dark handkerchief from his back pocket and began to meticulously wipe dirt from his hands. He was dressed casually, like Will, in clothes made for work.

_Maybe he was in the greenhouse when I got here. I couldn’t have been unconscious for very long._

Repocketing the cloth, Hannibal seemed to stand taller, and once again Spencer was struck with the impression that the light was bending to his will.

“You disregarded our warning, Dr. Reid.” Though his tone was almost jovial, Spencer didn’t miss the threat in it. “It seems your symbolic inner journey has led you directly to our doorstep. I hope you’ll pardon our rather abrupt introduction, and I do apologize for the roughness. Chiyoh gave us an impression of you that left us quite unprepared for the reality of your arrival.”

“What did she tell you?”

Will’s head tipped slightly to the left. “She told us you’re working for Alana and Margot. She said your profiling skills, paired with your interest in us, would more than likely lead you here. But she neglected to mention that you would arrive with ideas about elevation and … honoring.” The pause lasted no more than a heartbeat, but Spencer caught it just the same. “Does she know you’re entertaining ideas about murder?”

The younger profiler shook his head. “I’m not entertaining ideas about murder. Like you said, I’m interested in elevation.”

Hannibal chin lifted slightly—

_As if scenting the air_.

—though his eyes never left Spencer’s face. “Why? What has piqued your interest?”

Spencer’s mouth fell open, clicking shut again after a moment. He tried to shake the feeling that he was stepping out onto preciously thin ice. “Emma Surbeck.”

Silence pulsed around them, tight and rough. Will scrubbed his palm over his mouth, drawing Hannibal’s attention. His eyes followed the slope of Will’s brow, the trail of his fingertips along the ridge of his cheekbone. There was an imperceptibly subtle shift in Hannibal’s features; Spencer couldn’t register the movement, but all at once, Hannibal's expression was clouded.

_Sadness?_

Will stepped forward. “What about Emma, exactly? The way we left her?” His voice was clipped, dangerously sharp. Hannibal, it seemed, was not the only axe in the room. That step brought every ounce of his gravity with him, pushing Spencer back into his seat. “Is that what you found beautiful about her? What we did to her?”

Spencer’s stomach plummeted. He all but heard that thin ice begin to crack. 

_I can’t lie to them. They’ll know. But I need to be careful. God, I need to be so careful._

He heard a small click as he swallowed, his tongue dry and heavy in his mouth. He allowed himself to shrug. It felt neutral. Safe.

_Please let it be safe._

“The way you left her _was_ beautiful. The colors you chose. The gemstones. The flowers. It was, objectively, a beautiful scene. Especially in the sunlight, you posed her so perfectly—”

His captors frowned in unison; he quickly cleared his throat and moved on. “But it was what you _said_ that was most important. You used violets, a flower used to signify love and faithfulness. I think you forged some kind of friendship with Emma, maybe even the first real friendship you’ve had since you came back from wherever you were hiding. I think Emma figured out who you are. She probably figured it out a while ago, but she didn’t know what to do with the information, and I suspect her silence benefited you somehow. I don’t think you wanted to kill her; I think you _had to_. That’s why you didn’t take her organs. You took her eyes and the skin of her arms, something you wouldn’t eat. She wasn’t elevation, not like Simon. There was nothing about her you wanted to fix. You just wanted to thank her.” 

Emboldened by their silence, by their attention, Spencer darted his tongue over his lower lip. “But I understand that no matter how much you liked Emma, you couldn’t risk her talking. The gemstone violets may have thanked her for her friendship, but the orchids and the larkspur, they’re a reminder that you have to protect each other first. Always.” 

Spencer’s breath was light and quick, mimicking his galloping pulse. He’d responded honestly. He only hoped it was right. 

Hannibal roused first. He looked at Will, and Spencer was struck by the intensity of the Lithuanian’s gaze. Aglow with gentleness, with care. With _deference._  

All at once, Spencer understood. His fate was not in their hands at all. It was in Will Graham’s. 

Hannibal snaked his arm forward, his fingertips brushing Will’s elbow. It caught the dark-haired man’s attention, the two of them sharing a look that was impossible for Spencer to read. It left the younger profiler with the distinct feeling that the air was charged, like lightning was about to strike. He pulled back, tugging at his restraints. 

Will blinked then, a weak smile ghosting over his lips. When Hannibal returned it, Spencer felt the tension in the air shift, thickening against him. 

_A noose instead of a blade._

Will slid his fingertips against Hannibal’s, his palm gliding to rest on the older man’s wrist and giving an affectionate squeeze before letting it fall away. He turned his full attention back to Spencer, his gravity recentered. “You’re very clever, Dr. Reid. Clever, but careless.”

Hannibal nodded his agreement. “It’s quite rude to intrude upon someone else’s mourning process, though you seem to have acted gauchely rather than out of malice. You are better with ideas about emotions than with emotions themselves, I suspect. Intelligence behind a barrier. Tell us, Dr. Reid, what did you feel when you saw Emma?”

Spencer blinked, brow furrowing. “I thought—”

Will took another step forward, his eyes blazing with impossible, terrible knowledge. “No, not what you _thought_ . Not your analysis, not your understanding. What did you _feel_ when you saw her?”

Their eyes moved in unison to Spencer's wrists as he pulled harder. They looked like giant cats watching a mouse flee through long grass. 

As if fleeing would save him. As is anything could save him now. 

Neither smiled, but their eyes flashed.

Spencer bit the insides of his cheeks, heat rising in his neck. It wasn’t shame, though he knew it should have been. He blinked, hating himself for thinking he could saunter out to meet the wolves and expect to walk away unbitten. 

_They’re going to kill me._

That shiny bead of hope fell from his fingers. 

_To the truth, then._

_And all its consequences._

He didn’t try to hide the waver in his voice, kept his gaze on theirs even as his eyes began to sting.

“I felt… I felt envious.” He tensed, mouth agape as he searched for the words. The heat spread to his cheeks, burned the skin just beneath his eyes. “Envious of what you’ve found in each other. I saw Emma and all I could see was love. Love and understanding. To create something like that, something so intimate with another person … I’ve _never_ been seen or acknowledged they way you see and acknowledge each other. I’ve gotten close, but close isn’t enough. There’s always some piece of me I’ve had to hide, from my friends, my family. I’ve never been whole with anyone the way you’re whole together.”

A high, rueful laugh tore from his throat.  “And then I was _relieved_. I thought, if I could just find you, then maybe you’d see me. Just being seen would be enough, even if it wouldn’t make me whole.”

He snared his lip between his teeth, quieting himself. “But being seen is hard enough when you’re not harboring thoughts about killing someone, isn’t it? What chance is there now?”

He squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for them to run out of patience. Waiting for them to strike. 

_It doesn’t matter now. They’ll cut me, eat me, leave me displayed somewhere for Alana and Margot to find._

_I hope they make me beautiful._

Instead, Spencer heard the quiet shuffle of footsteps, the soft brush of movement. Then he felt the gentle prod of fingertips against his knee. Reluctantly, he forced his eyes open to find Will kneeling before him. Spencer could smell the woods on him, the biting autumn air, the clinging scent of chopped wood. His sharp scowl called attention to a rigid scar at his hairline, its line precise despite its fade. 

Hannibal watched in silence from behind, eyes bright, rapt.

“Who do you want to kill, Spencer?”

The younger profiler’s lips parted slowly. “H-her name is Cat Adams.”

“What did she do, to spark this urge in you?”

What did she do? _What did she do?_ How could he possibly condense the sheer, violent magnitude of it into just a few words? 

He swallowed, squaring his jaw. “She _broke_ me.”

“And you want to be rebuilt? You want us to show you how to kill her so you can put yourself together again?”

Spencer’s gaze dragged to Hannibal. The older man’s face was hard, void of emotion. He wouldn’t give anything away, wouldn’t give any clues as to how Spencer should answer. Refocusing on Will, Spencer grimaced. “No. That’s just it. I don’t want to go back to what I was. I want to make sense of what I am now.”

Will let his hand drop, pushing himself off the floor to return to Hannibal’s side. He folded his arms across his chest, pivoting so he and Hannibal were facing each other, almost conspiratorially. He hummed, shaking his head. “Always did have a habit of taking in strays.”

Hannibal smirked. “A quality that I continue to find endearing. At least this stray has proven to be an interesting prospect.”

Will raised his eyebrows, giving Hannibal a look beyond Spencer’s ability to read. “Remember Dimmond,” he warned.

Hannibal bristled. “You never had the opportunity to meet Anthony.” 

“I met enough of him to understand his meaning.”

Hannibal’s smile was more hinted at by the light in his eyes than any real movement in his face. “I don’t believe our dear Spencer is anything like Anthony.”

“No. He’s no substitute, is he?”

“I should think not. Perhaps … an addition. With certain parameters, of course.”

Will quirked an eyebrow and nudged Hannibal with his elbow, making the older man frown. “ _Very strict_ parameters, love. Assuming we can trust him.”

Spencer shook his head, face bunching into a frown. “I don’t understand. Who’s Anthony?”

“No one, now,” Will responded casually. “He’s long dead.”

Hannibal nodded. “But you don’t have to share that fate. You’re a very clever boy, Spencer. Very clever indeed, hiding the surge of your feelings behind a wall of intellect. You’ve done well to protect yourself in a world that cannot comprehend the depths of what you feel. A world that has been rough with you, has injured you grievously I imagine. I’m curious to see how far down those depths go. What lies in wait behind that meticulously-crafted wall of yours?”

Will saw the confusion in Spencer’s face. “We aren’t going to kill you. Not while we find you interesting.”

Spencer slid his gaze between them. That electrified sensation still hung in the air, an unspoken threat brushing against him and sending a wave of goosebumps across his skin. 

“We can help you,” Hannibal added. “We can help you make sense of what you think you are.”

“What I think I am?” He failed to conceal the edge of offense in his tone. 

“Yes. You have not yet achieved your becoming.”

Hannibal’s voice dropped then, taking on the cadence and weight of rolling thunder. “But you can, if this is really what you want. Tell us, Spencer. Is this really what you want?”

Spencer watched them, hypnotized by way the shadows curled around them, how the grey slate of sky visible through the window cast halos of tainted light around their faces. He let his jaw go slack, fear and want and desperation roiling through him, a surge so painful he winced.

He nodded, waiting for his voice to surface. “Yes. This is what I want. I want to learn from you. I want to learn how to elevate Cat Adams.”

Will and Hannibal exchanged a glance, dark and ruinous. The older man reached out and drew his hand along Will’s arm, letting it rest on his shoulder. As if seeking permission; making sure he would acquiesce.

“We can help him,” Will said, so low Spencer almost missed it. “We can help him see, and help him be seen.” 

Hannibal nodded. “Yes. And in return, he can help us.”

His captors turned together, fixing him with a stare that tore a shiver from his spine. Will’s head tilted low, like an animal on the hunt. Hannibal’s lips twisted into a smirk. “Yes, I think he will be quite helpful.”

“Helpful how?”

“By protecting us, Spencer. As we intend to protect you.” 

Hannibal moved toward him, stopping only once his neck was craned upwards. “Tell me, Spencer. Where are Alana and Margot hiding?”


	11. A History of Violence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy September, lovelies! Welcome back! I'm particularly fond of this chapter. It may not seem like a lot happens, but rest assured, this chapter is all about FOREPLAY and I AM SO PLEASED! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
> 
> My dear friend HarkerX, thank you for your continued support and feedback! It means the world to me!
> 
> As an aside, there's a writer I follow who updates, without fail, twice per week. I'm in awe of her and so wish I could stick to a schedule like that. It's made me all the more aware of how difficult it must be to come back when I update once per month. So, please let me take this moment to say THANK YOU! I know this timing isn't ideal, and I appreciate the hell out of every single one of you who come back to read more. From the bottom of my heart, thanks for sticking with me! <3 Please know this fic is not idly wandering. I have it sketched out from here until the end. It's just a matter of getting all the words in the right order :)
> 
> Now, without further delay, I believe we left Spencer tied up in Hannibal and Will's barn...

 

* * *

 

It was a long night out in the barn. The cold crept across Spencer’s body in waves, first as a mild chill, then as a gnawing cold, and finally as a harsh, serrating freeze. It pierced him, sinking in through his pores and down into his marrow until he was laced through with it, his teeth chattering and his body jerking uselessly against his restraints. 

Hannibal had offered no ultimatum. There had been no threat of punishment when Spencer refused to surrender Alana and Margot’s location. The unshakeable calm in the Lithunian’s posture convinced Spencer of one thing: Hannibal had not expected Spencer to answer him. He’d had every intention of letting Spencer shiver his way through the night from the beginning. 

His life may have been in Will’s hands, but his well-being was in Hannibal’s.

_He was just planting a seed. Just letting me know that nothing I find out here will come for free._

He cursed himself for his stupidity. _Three PhDs and three Bachelors degrees and I still fell face-first into their setup._

He chided himself. _No. I didn’t fall. I walked to it, to them, with open arms._

He listened to the sounds of the forest as the night wore on: the moan of the wind through the small gaps in the walls, the quiet rustle of some unseen animals outside. For a few hours, he saw the low orange glow of light from inside the cabin across the way. He imagined the warmth, saw Hannibal and Will seated by the fire in his mind’s eye, faces rosy from the licking heat. 

He shivered harder. 

He didn’t sleep all at once. It came in fits and starts, never allowing him to drift too deeply. Still, when the barn door creaked open behind him, he jerked up from what must have been a deep enough doze. His neck ached and his eyes were bleary, squinting even against the pale grey light of early morning seeping through the window in front of him. Stretching his neck, he waited to see who had come. 

“Good morning, Spencer.” Hannibal stepped forward with a friendly grin, offering up a small, rustic-looking tray of food. The wooden platter held a plate of toast, the bread brown and nutty with a bright dollop of melting butter, a luscious scramble of eggs, and a thick, heavy mug of steaming black coffee. Hannibal slid the tray into Spencer’s lap and dug a utility knife from his pocket, cutting Spencer’s non-dominant hand free. He retrieved another chair from its place beside a table off to Spencer’s right and pulled it so he was sitting before the younger man. Spencer gave a nervous thank-you before reaching for the coffee. It was only then that Hannibal pocketed the knife. 

Spencer sipped at the steaming mug, wincing at the bitterness. Still, he thought it best not to ask for his usual helpings of cream and sugar. He didn’t want to appear rude. 

Hannibal watched him silently, a relaxed smile playing over his lips. He waited until Spencer had eaten (clumsily, awkwardly, both from his limited dexterity and from being watched) before he began.

He held nothing back. 

“What is your relationship with violence, Spencer?”

Hannibal sounded almost chipper, the question posed as innocently as if he were asking Spencer about his taste in music.

The younger man quirked an eyebrow, setting down the mug and tray as best he could. “You don’t want to ask me about my mother?”

“Not unless she is a contributing factor to your violent urges. Is she a contributing factor?”

“She isn’t.”

“Then I see no need to mine for ore so close to the surface. You sought us out for a very specific reason, did you not? You came to us knowing who we are, what we’ve done. You are not here for therapy, Spencer. You’re here for guidance. I will refrain from wasting your time with stifling questions, and I would request that you not waste mine with inconsequential answers.”

Spencer’s tongue darted over his lower lip. “Skipping the appetizer in favor of the main course?”

Hannibal exhaled softly, a short breath of amusement. “Indeed. The more toothsome morsels are those nearest to the heart, if not the heart itself. So, tell me. What is your relationship with violence?”

Spencer let himself think, eyes clouding as he sorted through his memories, prodding into the things he felt and the intellect he had built up around those memories like scar tissue. “I suppose it’s always been an unspoken necessity. I’ve shot unsubs while on the job before. It’s expected of me. I do what I have to to survive.”

“Unsubs? Not people? You deny their humanity. You distance yourself from your work, rebuke the very craft you wish to embrace. Mere survival is a base way to live, as it denies you the pleasure of true experience. If every action is an act of endurance, you will find that nothing, not color nor taste nor touch, can rouse genuine feeling from you. Survival is the taking of ash instead of wine and calling it sustenance.”

Spencer let his eyes drop to his lap. “Cortisol.”

“What of it?”

“Stressful situations flood the brain with cortisol, our main stress hormone. It controls our fight-or-flight response, our mood, and our reactions to fear, even our sensitivity to pain. Cortisol also tells our bodies when it’s safe for our hormones to return to normal, essentially assuring us that a threat has passed.  When someone experiences trauma, we don’t get the message that it’s safe again. Our bodies are still primed for the threat. We're stuck ready to fight or run, constantly, and eventually we go numb. The body is in a constant state of stress that wreaks havoc on our immune systems, our memories, our hormonal and bodily regulation—”

When Hannibal tilted his head, Spencer caught himself, clearing his throat more loudly than intended before he continued: “What you described is the body’s reaction to an over-saturation of cortisol. Not being able to experience color or taste or touch as vividly … it’s numbing out, a reaction to exposure repeated stress. To trauma.”

He almost hated the look that crossed Hannibal’s face. A lowering of the brow, his palms turning upwards. A cool, steady gaze, as if approaching an animal in a trap. But there was a distinct absence of light in the eyes, no forcing of emotion.

_Not pity. Sympathy. Like Will’s, but inverted somehow. Practiced._

_Did Will teach this to him?_

“Again, Spencer, you hide your true feelings behind trivia, burying the truth of yourself in a torrent of knowledge. You speak not of _your_ trauma and what it has done to you, but of cortisol, a unifying chemical all bodies share. You’re trying to share an experience with me without ever naming it, reaching out for a connection without ever lifting a finger. Tell me, Spencer, which frightens you more: when those closest to you tune you out before they hear your truth, or when you find they have the patience to listen?”

The question struck Spencer like a physical blow. He winced, his shoulders bunching up away from the back of his chair as if Hannibal had slapped him across the cheek. 

The older man pressed on at Spencer’s answering silence. “How does it feel now, to know that I am listening? How does it _feel_ , Spencer, not what you think.”

“I feel ... like … I need to hide. Like it’s too much.”

“Even though you wanted this?”

He could only nod, fighting to keep his expression neutral, to still the tremor in his chin. 

_Hannibal stripped me bare, and he didn’t even have to try._

_Is this what it’s like? To be seen?_

“Then let us retreat a step. You’ve come to us all the way from the FBI, yes? A former profiler in the Behavioral Analysis Unit, one of the youngest students to earn his place as an agent, if Will recalls your history correctly. Tell me, have you ever harmed anyone beyond the line of duty?”

Spencer took a stabilizing breath. “Does the line of duty not count?”

Hannibal’s light rumble of laughter shivered in the air between them. “Perhaps as a precursor. However, if you are truly seeking to elevate someone, you’ll have to have a more intimate knowledge of the echoes and variations of brutality.” He shifted in his seat, silhouetted by the morning light behind him. Lit in shades of grey, Spencer couldn’t help but think of Lucifer reasoning his way into the hearts of the devout.

_But I’m not devout. Even if I were, I’m not operating on logic. Not here. Not anymore._

“I don’t want to brutalize anyone. What was done to me … I don’t want to perpetuate torment. But some violence can only be answered with violence. I want to make this one specific death have purpose.”

Hannibal hummed and considered the answer, digesting it, savoring it. “It is noble of you to have such high plans for Ms. Adams, but you are, perhaps, assuming you will be a prodigy in death as you have been in life. I can assure you—” he dipped his head, eyes lit with an impossible but undeniable inner flame, “death deserves its own mastery. Elevating your intended will not just be a matter of planning and intention. Nor will it be purely a demonstration of skill.”

He stood and approached Spencer in long, even strides, so deliberate and smooth that he seemed to glide, stooping to settle between Spencer’s knees and gaze up at him with those impossibly bright eyes, his gravity at once disarming and soothing. As if he were imparting some great wisdom, some cherished secret that perhaps only Will had been deemed worthy of receiving. 

Until now.

Spencer didn’t realize he’d begun to lean towards Hannibal until he felt the press of skin against his restraints. Catching himself, he pushed back into his original position as subtly as he could.

Hannibal gave no indication that he noticed, instead maintaining his stare. “You must do more than endure, Spencer. You must create a symphony of your own, beyond answering one violent call with another. Acknowledging what was done to you is only a precursor, a mere opening chord to your ballad. You must do more than need it. You must _want_ it. It must be more than death to you. Without love, without intimacy, the process of destruction will never yield creation. You mustn’t be afraid of immersing yourself in what you do, of allowing yourself to enjoy your process as you begin to understand it. You must see this as more than a task to be accomplished. You must approach with care, with—”

“Devotion.”

Hannibal’s eyes dropped, watching Spencer’s lips form around the word. A flash of teeth, of canines, before glancing up to reclaim Spencer’s stare. 

“Precisely.”

Spencer exhaled, hoping Hannibal didn’t hear the tremor in it. Knowing full well that Hannibal heard it, analyzed, and it conceptualized it before Spencer even realized he’d been holding his breath. 

And upon hearing it, Hannibal leaned back on his heels, ear turned as if to better hear the rapid stutter of Spencer’s heart. “Where did your devotion begin, Spencer? Not your desire for elevation, not even your trauma; that is your inspiration. What compels you to perfect your art? What drives you to make your inspiration a reality?”

It appeared in Spencer’s mind as easily as one of his card tricks. He wanted to hide its presence, didn’t want to show that Hannibal had conjured it inside him so easily. 

But his throat tensed as he swallowed. Hannibal’s eyes caught the movement and he pressed in closer, his hands hot on Spencer’s shins, fingertips pressing into the back of his calves. His shoulders pressed Spencer’s knees apart a fraction more.

“Tell me.” Not a question. A command.

The words caught in Spencer’s throat. His jaw fell open uselessly for a moment as his sentiment bubbled to the surface, clipped and nervous. Exposed. 

“I’ve shot them before. To stop them. I-I’ve shot unsubs … people ... to save lives. I’ve lied and deceived, but it was for my job. It was for the greater good.”

“Go on.”

“But it’s like I was … neutral. What I was doing, it wasn’t part of me. It was a coat I put on and took off, just like my Kevlar and my holster. Violence was an accessory. But when I was in prison…” His body was a live wire, every nerve pulled taught in memory.

He twitched when Hannibal spoke. “Tell me, Spencer.”

“I hurt the other inmates. I slipped poison into a shipment of drugs. I didn’t mean to hurt as many people as I did, but when it was over…”

“How did you feel? When it was done?”

He stared down at Hannibal, hair tumbling over his eyes. His breath was quick, eager. “I felt powerful. Justified. I felt like I had finally taken control, like violence was part of me, was _inside_ me. I was finally strong, and it was a strength I _earned_.”

Hannibal’s eyes flashed. “We are never more like God than in those moments in which we are at our most violent. Our brutality begets our divinity.”

Spencer felt as if he were disconnecting from reality, the world around him drifting away as the sound of Hannibal’s voice rushed up to meet him, cool and silky, feeling the massaging of a muscle well overworked. He nodded heavily.

“Divinity was only part of it. It felt righteous. Like pain and preservation were two storms converging inside me, but I directed them. I did more than react: I took control.”

There was a flex against Spencer’s legs and Hannibal squeezed, a steady, building pressure, a comforting ache.

“You didn’t kill them.”

“I wanted to then. And … I want to now.”

“Do you think you’re ready? To see violence through to its natural conclusion?”

Spencer blinked, startled. He thought carefully, watching Hannibal watch him. Finally, he shook his head. “No. I’m not ready. I have ideas saturating my head of what I want to do, but I know I lack the clarity to make it matter. I’m not an artist, am I, Dr. Lecter? I’m just man fumbling in the dark, grasping at the lightning-strike of a dream I want to turn to flesh.”

Hannibal’s grin was a slow, serpentine twist over his lips, almost casual in its severity. He leaned back, the light rippling around him as if he, himself, were made of something less than flesh, yet more substantial than shadow. 

_Sentient temptation._

“I see desire in your eyes. I see it in you like I saw it in Will.” He paused, his smile holding. “I sense a great capacity for violence and benevolence in you. If these impulses of yours are cultivated, I am truly curious to see how your symphony might come to life.”

Spencer fought off a shiver, determined to hold Hannibal’s spark-bright stare. “I can learn. I can turn my answering cry into a song.”

Hannibal chuckled, a long, low rumble that send a wave of goosebumps over Spencer’s skin. “I am eager for the opportunity to see a fellow artist at work. And I think, Will and I, we have such sights to show you.”

* * *

Spencer was almost relieved when Hannibal re-bound his hand. Being tied down felt safe, sane, after their conversation.

_Conversation? I’ve never had a conversation like that before. I feel naked. Exhausted._

It had taken Spencer a very long time to understand how to navigate the feelings of others, how to categorize the circular lettering of his own inner language against the sharp, symmetrical alphabet that made up the common language of his peers. Identifying his own feelings had been challenge enough; mapping them over the feelings of his coworkers had taken him years.

So much time. Endless practice. Learning what was appropriate to say, when to hold back. What was safe to share. Which feelings were all his own, needing to be kept tucked beneath his chin to protect himself.

Hannibal saw those barriers, built perfectly to Spencer’s exacting specifications, and trampled them.

_I said I wanted to be seen, and he gave me exactly what I wanted. Is this what he did to Will? What he did_ **_for_ ** _Will?_

And Will had reciprocated, had allowed himself to see and to be seen.

_Were they as scared as I am?_

And then, a whisper even in his own mind: _This is how they fell in love._

Spencer turned his head, digging the sharp point of his chin into his shoulder. He closed his eyes and focused on the throb of pain, letting it fill him up with each passing beat of his heart. Letting it sooth him, ground him to his own body. Bringing him back from a precipice that was opening its maw wider and wider, waiting.

It was in this position that Will found him.

“You all right?”

Spencer started, suddenly unsure of how long he’d been left alone. He glanced toward the window to find the light largely unchanged, only dimmed by a thickening of clouds as an autumn storm brewed sullenly in the distance. Will caught the movement, casting his own gaze through the glass as he took his seat across from Spencer. 

“You haven’t been alone long. Looks like Hannibal went a bit rough on you.”

“Yeah. I can’t say I was prepared for that conversation.”

Will allowed himself a smirk, the blue in his eyes sparking against the grey slate of sky behind him. “He has that effect on people. I thought it best that we talk to you separately this morning, give you a chance to ask your questions.”

“Give you a chance to interrogate me separately, you mean.”

Will huffed in laughter, but it lacked warmth. “You’re asking us to take you into our home. Not just our home, our lives, our intimacy. You’ve asked for a front row seat to a bond we’ve shared only with each other. Are you surprised?”

Spencer shook his head. “No, I suppose not. I am surprised he didn’t ask me about Alana and Margot again. Is that your job? Hannibal disrupts my moral compass and you come in to show me a new North?”

“Don’t act like you haven’t come here looking for that new North in the first place.” Will’s eyes flashed, his voice sharp. Where Hannibal was silk and seduction, Will was the heat of a warning shot. “You threatened us by coming here. There’s no telling who else Alana and Margot have looking for us. You’ve piqued our curiosity, but don’t think our interest alone will save you.”

Perhaps still lightheaded from his conversation with Hannibal, Spencer allowed himself this boldness: “Is that what happened to Emma? Did your interest run out?”

He regretted it as soon as the words dropped from his lips. His mouth pinched, as if tasting something sour. His heart stammered in his chest and he felt a leaden ball of shame curl into his gut.

Will leveled him with a frigid, frightening stare, so dark and cold that Spencer’s breathing stopped altogether. 

He swallowed, admonishing the insides of his cheeks with a firm bite. “That was incredibly callous of me. I … I’m sorry.”

The ex-profiler took a long breath, his gaze alternating between Spencer’s face and his bound wrists. Spencer wondered if Will would strike him. If he would stab him. 

He did neither. 

He met Spencer’s stare fearlessly, with the fire and steadiness of a man who’d had his life flayed apart, his stability and his desires shattered and rebuilt. A man who stood on the ashes of what his life had once been, blood smeared over his lips, and howled, triumphant. 

_Could I ever hope to look like that?_

“Emma,” Will began, his voice no more than a shift of whispers, “was gentle. She was kind. So much kinder than we deserved. She was just an apprentice at the auction house, was still learning the tricks of her trade. I don’t know how she’d avoided knowing our real names for so long, but she didn’t know. She laughed with us, traded stories, even if ours were fabricated. Set aside antiques for Hannibal to look at, asked for his help evaluating some things. He loved that, you know. Feeling part of society again, even in a small way.

“I don’t know how she found out. Maybe a news article, something online. She said she didn’t believe it, not at first. Not even after she saw pictures from Hannibal’s trial.”

“Did she know you killed Simon Vetsch?”

“She suspected strongly enough that she might as well have known.”

“Did she threaten to turn you in?”

“No.” Will’s fingers flexed, searching for something to grab hold of. Denied a buoy, he curled them slowly into fists. “No, she didn’t want to turn us in to the police. She wanted to bring us to doctors. She rationalized us by telling herself we’re sick. Couldn’t rectify the men she spoke to with the ones she met on paper. She thought there would be some leniency if we turned ourselves over to a psychiatric hospital.”

“And there was no convincing her otherwise, was there? Either you would go, or she would tell someone about you. Because she thought she was helping you.”

After a moment, Will nodded, flexing his shoulders. The action seemed to steady him, steeling his resolve. “She was kind and gentle, but misguided. She couldn’t be trusted, and I won’t have Hannibal taken from me. Do you understand?”

Spencer could only dip his chin in the affirmative. 

“Good. Then you see why Alana and Margot are such a threat to us. They sent you after us. There’s no telling who else might be looking.”

“They don’t want to hunt you, Will. They just want reassurance. They want to know that their family is safe, just like you do. What you’re trying to protect here, it’s the same. Alana and Margot don’t want to hurt you, they just need to know that you won’t go after them.”

Will’s smile was rueful, his chuckle a whispering staccato filling the barn. “You don’t know them, Spencer.”

“They want a truce.”

“A truce? So they didn’t ask you to kill me and Hannibal, if you had to?”

Spencer hesitated. “I have no intention of killing you.”

“That wasn’t my question.” Will closed his eyes, retreating inward for a moment, so completely that Spencer felt a resounding sense of solitude in the barn. He was sure, in that moment, that Will had done effortlessly what he has spent hours trying to accomplish in Paris.

_He went inside. Not just himself. He went inside_ **_me_ ** _. He’s looking for something. Using his empathy to understand._

When Will opened his eyes again, he looked calm, assured. “Alana and Margot have asked you to kill without love, Spencer. They’ve asked you to bastardize an artform you’ve come here to learn.”

“What do you mean?” 

“Killing me and Hannibal would be murder. It would be a job, something graceless and undignified for all of us. It goes against everything that brought you here.”

“And what’s your interpretation of what brought me here?”

“You said it yourself: love. You saw Emma, and you said you saw love. I believe you. Without that, there’s no elevation. You can’t deal in death the way we do without love. Do you love the woman who hurt you, Spencer? Do you love Cat Adams?”

Spencer’s growl seeped through the cage of his teeth. “She framed me for murder. Stripped me of my dignity, my sanity. She tore me down to nothing, and she did it for her own enjoyment.”

“That’s akin to courtship in some circles.”

“What Cat did to me was _ghastly_.”

“So was what Hannibal did to me.” Will went silent for a moment, eyes dancing over the pronounced tendons of the younger man’s throat. “We’ve both been broken, Spencer. I tried to deny my feelings about Hannibal—for Hannibal—for a long time, but there was no outrunning them, in the end. The people who love us have the capacity to wound us with a severity and uniqueness we can’t predict. And we have that same capacity: for every piece of us they break, we can use to cut them. Love isn’t the absence of those shards; it’s the choice not to shred each other after the shatter.”

His eyes were glassy, his gaze distant. “And sometimes it’s forgiving them, even after they shred you.”

Spencer's breathing went ragged, his eyes beginning to burn. He didn’t register the pain in his fingers right away: the severe pressure of the splintered wood against his skin as he gripped the armrests of his chair. “I could never love Cat. I hate everything she is. Everything she stands for.”

“Then you’ll never elevate her.”

Spencer stilled, suddenly cold. “No. Th-that’s not … I don’t accept that.”

“Elevation doesn’t come from wrath. What Hannibal can do, what he taught me to do, comes from a place beyond rage. Beyond vengeance. I couldn’t catch him until I forgave him. Do you understand?”

Spencer shook his head. “Cat’s already been caught. She’s rotting in a cell right now. I already know where she is, I don’t need to forgive her.”

“You don’t need to forgive her if you want to murder her, that’s true. But you didn’t come here to murder her, did you? You wanted something more. You want us to show you how to elevate her.”

The younger profiler all but spat his response. “What about Beverly Katz? Or Abigail Hobbs? How long did it take for you to forgive Hannibal for what he did to them?”

Will’s eyes dropped to his hands, lingered there as if he saw a stain on them, something flaking from beneath his nails. Spencer watched him ruminate, the tension in his jaw betraying the facade put up by the even rise and fall of his chest.

It was several moments before Will spoke. “We washed up on a beach. Chiyoh found us, somehow.” He chuckled. “She always does, in the end. We were dehydrated. Starving. Battered.”

Will’s hand lifted to absently finger a scar on his cheek. “Infected. My mouth was full of sand and my skin burned from exposure. It took a very long time for us to heal. I was laying in a shack, sweating like crazy. I woke up and felt Hannibal near me, cool somehow, like he absorbed my heat into himself and diffused it. He was on the floor, eyes closed. I asked him why he wouldn’t lay in bed, why he wouldn’t come closer, given that we dove off a cliff together. He said the air around me burned, not from fever, but from the scald of my residual anger. He said it didn’t feel like pushing us off the bluff had really blunted the daggers of my heartbreak.” 

Will’s voice faded. Perhaps, Spencer wondered, he was deciding if he was revealing too much of a broken heart. Then Will’s face flexed, a ripple of emotion surging over him. Grief. Resolution. Finally, peace. 

“He wouldn’t touch me. Wouldn’t take my hand, wouldn’t even let our fingers graze when he handed me a cup of water or helped Chiyoh change my bandages. I saw that he wanted to. Hannibal’s courtship may not be direct, but it’s never been subtle. He saw where my breakage was, and he allowed it to heal on its own. He finally chose only to observe, not to intervene. 

“I suppose this is a long-winded way of saying I didn’t actively choose to forgive him. It just happened. A day simply came when I woke up and I found that the fire of my grief had burned out. There’s still a ring of ash and debris in my chest for them. There always will be. But it doesn’t hurt me anymore. We couldn’t move forward until that pain was gone, and Hannibal, eventually, put his want for me aside enough to let me process that grief. ” 

Spencer felt the burn in his eyes sharpen into a sting. His breath hitched. He thought of Maeve, of her voice, of the way she said his name. So different from how Cat said it. 

“Hannibal took everything from you.” 

“Yes.”

“He changed you.”

“As much as I changed him.” 

“And you still love him?”

Will’s smile was tight but soft. Genuine. “Yes. Hannibal is a choice I made, not an impulse I followed. Meeting him may have changed the trajectory of my impulses, but I’m here because I want to be.”

In a smooth and fluid motion, Will leaned forward, his eyes boring into Spencer’s. The younger man pulled back, mouth pinched in his revulsion. 

_Love Cat Adams? Forgive her? Never._

It was as if Will could see into his mind, into the hornet-swirl of his thoughts. “You don’t have to be _in love_ with her, but you’ll never elevate her this way. You have a tableau burning a hole in your head, I can see that you do. But rage won’t get you what you want. It’s an impulse you’re following. Impulses are sloppy. They’ll get you caught, or killed. You have to be above your impulses.”

Spencer swallowed roughly, muscles straining. He forced himself to relax, his joints creaking at the release of tension. He felt the frown still pressed into his face; he tried to smooth his features, tried to show his cooperation. His control. 

“How do I do that?”

“Make Cat a choice instead of an impulse. You have the capacity to murder her or elevate her, but to do something meaningful, you have to understand what’s happening inside your chest, not your head. You have to move beyond vengeance in order to take revenge.”

Spencer let a rumble escape his throat. “That doesn’t make sense. How am I supposed to take revenge if I let my anger burn out?”

Will grabbed him suddenly, his palms hot against Spencer’s hands. His grip was gentle, delicate, the suddenness of it pulling the air from Spencer’s lungs in a small gasp.

“You let us help you. Let _me_ help you. I’ve been where you are. Lost and angry, hackles up and teeth bared.” He drew impossibly soft circles over Spencer’s knuckles. “The answers will come. Just allow yourself to stop being angry, if only for today. Focus on your calm instead of your rage. Your outlook is stifled by anger because that’s all you’ll allow yourself to feel. Let the anger go and your design with evolve.”

Will’s breath brushed over Spencer’s cheek, the gentleness of it, the intimacy, rendering the younger profiler silent.  

“Where did you find your design, Spencer? How did you decide your method of elevating Cat?”

“It just came to me. Part of it in a dream. The rest came when I went inside.”

“Went inside?”

“In Paris. I tried to do what you do.”

Will watched him for a long while, eyes intense and bright. The younger man could only wince, waiting for Will to speak. When he did, he sounded genuinely surprised: “You tried to empathize your way through murder?”

Spencer nodded. 

“How did that work out for you?”

“It was confusing. Overwhelming. I tried to imagine how you and Hannibal would do it, but it didn’t feel like you and Hannibal. I went deeper inside myself, what I’d do, not if I was you, but if I was _with_ you. Influenced by you.”

The ex-profiler’s voice was soft and thick, a balm on Spencer’s aching soul. “How did you feel afterwards?”

“Unstable. Shaken. But I wanted to try again.”

Will drew a hand over his mouth as he leaned back. Spencer stared after him, missing the heat of his hands, trying to read the emotions stirring over his features. It was too much, too quick. 

“But you didn’t try again, did you?”

“No. I was scared.”

“Would you like to try again now?”

Spencer gasped, a soft, eager sound, half disbelief and half anticipation. He felt himself teetering on the edge, an edge he couldn’t name, staring down into a roiling sea gone black with blood. 

And there was Will Graham, asking if he’d like to jump. 

Spencer bit his lip, a sudden burst of clarity flashing through him and reminding him why he had been sent here. “What does Hannibal want with Alana and Margot, Will? Would he honor a truce?”

Will shook his head slowly. “I can only influence. They aren’t mine to pardon or protect.” He didn’t wait for a response. “Would you like to try your hand at empathetic exploration again? Would you like to try it outside your own fantasies?”

Spencer’s mind raced. He had his answer. Alana and Margot were truly in danger. The storm was twisting around them and it was only a matter of time before its terrible eye focused on them, sharp and unforgiving. This is what he’d been hired to prevent. _This_ was his purpose: to end the violence here, now, before Alana lost her wife, her son. Her life. 

But there was a darkness inside Spencer Reid, and it seethed through him with an insistent, pulsing heat. A heat he couldn’t ignore, sparked by the friction of his anger and his loneliness and god, his desperation to be seen.

Thunder growled in the distance. 

Spencer’s tongue darted, wetting his lower lip. “Show me.”

Will smiled, a slow, crawling grin. When he spoke, it was like black velvet against Spencer’s ear. “Close your eyes.”

And what could Spencer do, what could he ever have hoped to do, but obey?


End file.
